In July, a flight on its way to Chicago from CHO turned around shortly after take off because of a written bomb threat found in the lavatory.

He’s been charged with interfering with an aircraft and giving false information. Cox-Sever is accused of stuffing a bag with towels and reporting it as a suspicious package making beeping noises on a SkyWest Airlines flight from Minneapolis to Dickinson on September 9, 2015.

When the flight arrived at Dickinson Airport, located 100 miles west of North Dakota’s capital in Bismarck, the airport was temporarily shut down as a result of the perceived threat.

“(Cox-Sever) is presumed innocent and all allegations are only that”, Fulton said.

Under further questioning, Cox-Sever confessed to planting the suspicious bag, saying he acquired it from a food delivery a few days prior and the towels were his own, Genck wrote. His status with the airline is pending a police investigation into the incident.

That SkyWest flight was diverted back to Charlottesville after Cox-Sever reported that someone had written a threat on a wall of the plane’s bathroom.

In the affidavit that was filed Monday, Genck states Cox-Sever interfered with, and attempted to interfere with, the authorized operation of aircraft, and an air navigation facility, with reckless disregard for the safety of human life while doing so. Cox-Sever then told the flight deck he could hear “beeping” inside the bag.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Particular Agent Daniel Genck says in courtroom paperwork that Cox-Sever additionally admitted to fabricating a bomb menace on a July 7 flight from Charlottesville, Virginia, to Chicago.

Genck said Cox-Sever initially told authorities “he was extorted by a friend who told him that he needed to “bring down” the plane or else they would harm him and his family”, but later said he had “willingly” created the threats.

Information from the Associated Press included in this report.