CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A pilot accused of threatening to shoot a commercial airline captain if they diverted their flight to give a passenger medical attention is an Air Force Reserve lieutenant colonel who was relieved of command for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.
Dunn was afterward sent on orders to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, training to serve at the 603rd Air Operations Center. The Air Force has suspended his access to sensitive information and to the air operations center because of the airline incident, according to a spokesman for the Air Force in Europe.
Dunn had been relieved of command after contracting the coronavirus and refusing the vaccine in 2021, and faced being sent to the Individual Ready Reserve where he could not serve in any unit or be eligible for training opportunities, according to a Supreme Court filing.According to court records, Dunn was commissioned as an Air Force officer in 2003 and logged more than 1,400 hours flying combat missions over Afghanistan.
Dunn’s lawyers said he had received many other vaccines but raised a religious objection to the COVID-19 vaccine because government leaders elevated it from a health measure to a procedure with “symbolic and sacramental quality.” After losing in lower courts, Dunn’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was dismissed in April 2022 in an unsigned order that gave no explanation for the decision.
Dunn had threatened the captain with being shot “multiple times” if they diverted, the inspector general’s office said in an email Tuesday.