A Spirit Airlines pilot was removed from duty after being arrested last month at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport on criminal charges that he had stalked two children, according to a statement from the airline and court documents.
The pilot, Dominic Armando Cipolla, 40, of Kansas City, Mo., is charged with two counts of stalking the children with “reckless conduct causing fear” last August, according to a complaint filed in Johnson County District Court in Olathe, Kan. One of the children was under the age of 14, making one of the charges a felony.
Mr. Cipolla, who lives in Kansas City, Mo., was released this week on $12,500 bail.
Spirit Airlines said in a statement that it was aware of the circumstances under which Mr. Cipolla was arrested but that the matter was not related to his work.
“The pilot was removed from duty pending our investigation into the matter, and we arranged for another pilot to operate the flight,” the statement said, referring to the flight Mr. Cipolla was apparently pulled from upon his arrest.
Spirit Airlines did not say what the status of its investigation regarding Mr. Cipolla was. Under the terms of his release, he is not allowed to leave the state of Kansas without the approval of the Johnson County District Court. He is also not allowed to make contact with children.
Mr. Cipolla has been a first officer with Spirit Airlines since 2022, according to a LinkedIn account under his name that has been taken down since his arrest.
The charges against Mr. Cipolla were brought by the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office, which declined to comment further.
It is unclear whether Mr. Cipolla has a lawyer, and efforts to reach him by phone on Tuesday were unsuccessful.
In a recent unrelated case, a Delta Air Lines pilot facing felony counts of child abuse was arrested in the cockpit of a plane that had just landed.
Aishvarya Kavi works in the Washington bureau of The Times, helping to cover a variety of political and national news.
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