A passenger accused of telling the crew of a United Airlines flight that he had a bomb is being held without bond in Louisiana on state charges, and federal immigration authorities have lodged a detainer against him, officials and local reporting said. Rony Alexander Gomez-Alberto, 34, of New York, was arrested by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office after United Flight 2174 landed safely at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport on Monday night, November 9. The allegations have not been tested in court, and no federal charge had been announced as of Wednesday.
Source: nola.com / The Times-Picayune, via Executive Protection Daily brief
The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office said Gomez-Alberto began acting irrationally at about 11:20 p.m. local time on Monday and told crew he had a bomb. The aircraft, a Boeing 737 MAX 9 carrying 46 passengers and six crew, landed safely in New Orleans, and he was arrested without incident on the ground. United Airlines said the flight, which had left Newark, New Jersey, for New Orleans, landed safely after a passenger disturbance.
State charges, no bond - and a disputed cockpit claim
Gomez-Alberto was booked on state counts of communicating false information of planned arson and terrorizing, and is held without bond, according to the sheriff's office accounts cited by nola.com and ABC7 New York. The Department of Homeland Security separately listed bomb threat, terroristic threat and disorderly conduct offences in its statement, and told Fox News that Gomez-Alberto attempted to enter the cockpit during the flight. That cockpit-attempt claim appears only in the DHS account: local sheriff's accounts cited by nola.com and ABC7 do not mention an attempt to enter the cockpit. Readers should treat the cockpit claim as a DHS allegation that local reporting has not corroborated, not as an established fact.
On November 10, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged a detainer for Gomez-Alberto with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office, the Department of Homeland Security said. A detainer asks a local jail to notify ICE and hold a person for possible federal custody after the local case, which means Gomez-Alberto is now the focus of both Louisiana law enforcement and federal immigration authorities from the same flight.
Immigration history, as described by DHS
DHS said Gomez-Alberto, a citizen of Honduras living in the Bronx, New York, had previously been apprehended after entering the United States near El Indio, Texas, in September 2011 and near Columbus, New Mexico, in October 2014, and was removed from the country after both encounters. DHS also said Border Patrol arrested him again after an attempted entry near San Ysidro, California, in 2019, and that ICE released him from custody in January 2020 after an immigration judge ordered his release pending removal proceedings. Those history details come from DHS, the agency seeking his removal; Gomez-Alberto's own account and any response from a lawyer have not been reported.
Agreed across sheriff, airline and federal accounts: Flight 2174 landed safely, no one was reported injured, and Gomez-Alberto was arrested on landing and later held without bond. Not agreed: DHS says he tried to enter the cockpit; the local sheriff's accounts reported by nola.com and ABC7 do not mention any cockpit attempt. No federal charge had been announced as of Wednesday.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it plans to investigate the incident. Federal prosecutors have not announced whether they will bring a federal case, which in past onboard-threat cases has been a separate decision from state booking charges. The state counts - communicating false information of planned arson and terrorizing - are Louisiana charges decided by state prosecutors and a state court, while the ICE detainer is an immigration matter that normally takes effect only when local custody ends or a court orders a transfer.
Why the route matters for readers
Flight 2174 connects two places with large immigrant communities - Newark, a main international gateway for New Jersey, and New Orleans - and the case joins two systems that travellers usually experience separately: airline security, where a single statement to a crew can end a flight in an arrest, and immigration enforcement, where an arrest can trigger a detainer even before any conviction. For Punjabi and other diaspora travellers who fly domestic U.S. routes with family members on different immigration statuses, the practical lesson from the official accounts is narrow and factual: a disturbance allegation led to a state arrest, no bond, a federal detainer the next day, and an FAA investigation - all before any court has decided whether the underlying claims are proven.
What happens next: Gomez-Alberto remains held without bond in Jefferson Parish while the state case proceeds; a federal charging decision is still to come; the FAA investigation will examine the crew's and airline's handling of the disturbance; and ICE's detainer, lodged on November 10, will determine whether immigration custody follows the criminal case. Awaaz Punjab will update this story if prosecutors, the sheriff's office or DHS release a charging document or a court date.