§2A5.2 Interference with Flight Crew Member or Flight Attendant: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2025
All 29 people sentenced under guideline §2A5.2 in fiscal year 2025 pleaded guilty (100%), and none went to trial. 21 of them (72%) received a prison term, with a median prison term of 8.4 months. 4 (14%) received probation only.
· Understanding Trends in Military Practice · 6 min read
Trends › Federal Prosecution Analysis › §2A5.2 Interference with Flight Crew Member or Flight Attend › §2A5.2: FY2025
In brief: All 29 people sentenced under guideline §2A5.2 in fiscal year 2025 pleaded guilty (100%), and none went to trial. 21 of them (72%) received a prison term, with a median prison term of 8.4 months. 4 (14%) received probation only.
This post uses the U.S. Sentencing Commission's records of 29 people sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2025. Acquittals and dismissals come from a second source, the Federal Judicial Center's records of 753,808 federal defendants whose cases ended in fiscal years 2016 to 2025. It is part of the Federal Prosecution Analysis series, which builds on Military Moves Toward Sentencing Guidelines to Mirror the Federal System. How the numbers were built: How the Federal Comparison Data Was Built.
Every Case Ended in a Guilty Plea
The U.S. Sentencing Commission data lists 29 people sentenced in fiscal year 2025 for cases where §2A5.2 was the primary guideline. The Guidelines Manual titles §2A5.2 "Interference with Flight Crew Member or Flight Attendant; Interference with Dispatch, Navigation, Operation, or Maintenance of Mass Transportation Vehicle; Unsafe Operation of Unmanned Aircraft." The primary guideline is the one that set the offense level for the most serious count. All 29 pleaded guilty, and 0 were convicted after a trial.
Among those guilty pleas, 79% had a written plea agreement and 21% were straight pleas with no agreement. Because no one in this group was convicted at trial, the data has no trial sentences to compare with plea sentences.
Fiscal year 2025 ran from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025.
Prison Terms and Probation
21 of the 29 people (72%) were sentenced to prison. 4 (14%) received probation only, with no prison or other confinement.
The median prison term among those sent to prison was 8.4 months. The spread was wide. A quarter received 30 months or more, and a quarter received 3 months or less.
A mandatory minimum prison term applied to 0 of the 29 people. After prison, 21 (72%) were ordered to serve supervised release, and the median term was 36 months.
Where the Sentences Fell Against the Guideline Range
The guideline range is the range the Guidelines Manual calculates for a case. 17 of the 29 sentences (59%) were within the range. 6 (21%) were below the range at the government's request, and 6 (21%) were below it without a government request. 0 were above the range.
The 59% within the range matches the share for all fiscal years 2016 to 2025 under this guideline. For everyone sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2025 under every guideline, the share within the range was 51%.
Money Orders and Criminal History
A fine was ordered for 3 people (10%), and restitution was ordered for 3 (10%).
In criminal history, 52% were in the lowest category I and 14% were in the highest category VI. Court-martial records have no criminal history field, so that part of the data has no military counterpart.
How 2025 Fits With the Other Years
Across fiscal years 2016 to 2025, 244 people were sentenced under §2A5.2. In that period 65% were sent to prison, the median prison term was 8 months, and 95% pleaded guilty. The 2025 median of 8.4 months was about the same as the 8-month median for all years.
In fiscal year 2024, the previous year, 30 people were sentenced, the median prison term was 10.5 months, and 47% were within the range. The 2025 median was lower than the 2024 median.
All federal sentences in fiscal year 2025 covered 66,662 people, with a median prison term of 24 months and 98% guilty pleas. The §2A5.2 median was lower than that all-guidelines median. The table gives each year's count, median, and plea rate.
| Fiscal year | People sentenced | Median prison | Pleaded guilty |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 32 | 9 months | 91% |
| 2017 | 20 | 6.5 months | 85% |
| 2018 | 18 | 6.1 months | 100% |
| 2019 | 27 | 7 months | 96% |
| 2020 | 16 | 10 months | 100% |
| 2021 | 25 | 8 months | 96% |
| 2022 | 27 | 10 months | 96% |
| 2023 | 20 | 6 months | 100% |
| 2024 | 30 | 10.5 months | 93% |
| 2025 | 29 | 8.4 months | 100% |
Limits of the Records
A single year of 29 people is a small group, and the figures should not be read as a trend. The Commission's offense type for these cases is "Other."
Only people who were convicted and sentenced appear. Acquittals and dismissals are not counted, and prison terms are the terms imposed, not time served. The approved crosswalk has no close court-martial counterpart for this guideline, so only federal numbers are reported.
How We Counted
Everyone sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2025 whose primary sentencing guideline was §2A5.2 (29), U.S. Sentencing Commission individual data files. The primary guideline is the one that set the offense level for the most serious count.
Federal fiscal years run from October 1 to September 30. No person, judge, or lawyer is identified in any of these records.
What to Keep in Mind
No parole in federal prison; credit for good conduct. Federal prison has no parole for crimes committed on or after November 1, 1987. A federal prisoner can earn up to 54 days of good conduct credit for each year of the sentence the judge imposed, which is about 15%. Some federal prisoners can also earn First Step Act time credits, but many offenses make a person ineligible. The numbers in this post are the sentences judges imposed, not the time people actually served.
Federal supervised release. Most federal prison sentences are followed by a term of supervised release that the judge sets as part of the sentence. A person who violates it can be sent back to prison. A court-martial cannot sentence anyone to supervision after release. Military parole and mandatory supervised release are decided later by a board, not by the judge at trial.
Who decides the sentence, and under what rules. Federal judges sentence every federal case. They must calculate the Sentencing Guidelines range, which is advisory, and must impose any mandatory minimum the statute requires unless an exception applies. In courts-martial, the accused could choose sentencing by members until the rules changed. For cases in which every guilty finding is for an offense committed after December 27, 2023, a military judge sentences alone, within sentencing parameters. Courts-martial tried in 2024 and later include both old-rule and new-rule cases, and the data cannot tell them apart.
Time periods. Federal numbers are by federal fiscal year (October 1 to September 30), based on the sentencing date. The military numbers are by trial date. Neither source has the date of the offense, so a change in law shows up in either data set gradually.
How life sentences and "time served" are counted. In the federal numbers, a life sentence is counted as 470 months, and any other sentence longer than 470 months is counted as just under 470 months. A sentence of "time served" is counted as one day (0.03 months). Averages are affected by these rules; medians much less.
Related Analysis
- Military Moves Toward Sentencing Guidelines to Mirror the Federal System (the background article)
- Federal Prosecution Analysis (all federal posts)
- How the Federal Comparison Data Was Built (sources and method)
- §2A5.2 Interference with Flight Crew Member or Flight Attendant: Federal Sentences, FY2016–2025 (overview)
- §2A5.2 Interference with Flight Crew Member or Flight Attendant: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2024 (previous or next fiscal year)
- How Often Federal Judges Sentence Outside the Guideline Range
- Mandatory Minimums: How Many Federal Sentences Are Set by Congress
- U.S. Sentencing Commission, Individual Offender Datafiles (source)
- Federal Judicial Center, Integrated Database (criminal defendants) (source)
About the author. Jocelyn C. Stewart is a retired Army JAG with more than 24 years of trying courts-martial and more than 200 jury trials. She hosts Where All The Bodies Are Buried and runs the Law Office of Jocelyn C. Stewart. This analysis is for education and information only. It is not legal advice, and every case is different.