Twice-Deported Illegal Immigrant ID’d as United Flier Accused of Bomb, Hijack Threat — and Was Sprung by Judge After ICE Bust
11th November 2026
The deranged passenger who claimed he had a bomb aboard a New Orleans-bound United Airlines flight and then tried to rush the cockpit, has been identified as a Honduran illegal migrant twice kicked out of the US, immigration officials told The Post.
Rony Alexander Gomez-Alberto, 34, was arrested on three separate occasions by Border Patrol for illegally entering the United States, years before he threatened to blow up the United flight 2174 plane out of New Jersey Monday night, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said.
Immigration officials said that Gomez-Alberto, a Honduras native, was arrested twice in the US and deported – first in September 2011 near El Indio, Texas, and again in October 2014 in Columbus, New Mexico.
He does a really good job of looking like a Muslim.
The slippery migrant made his way back into the US a third time in 2019 near California’s San Ysidro border town, where he was nabbed again, according to DHS.
But Gomez-Alberto was freed from ICE custody in January 2020 after a judge ordered his release pending removal proceedings, authorities said.