A 32-year-old man has been charged after he allegedly punched a flight attendant twice Thursday in an unprovoked attack on a Hawaiian Airlines flight bound for Hilo.

It was the third disruption involving the state’s largest carrier in a span of roughly 24 hours. The other incidents included a female who allegedly refused to put on a mask on a Honolulu-Seattle flight, and an emergency landing made at Midway Atoll during a flight from South Korea to Honolulu.

In the alleged punching incident, Steven Sloan Jr. was charged with one count of assault and one count of interference with a flight crew. He remains in custody at the Honolulu Federal Detention Center.

The alleged unprovoked attack occurred on Flight HA 152 at about 7:30 a.m., shortly after its departure from Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.

According to an FBI affidavit, the flight attendant was walking down the aisle to collect trash when a male passenger seated in the sixth-row aisle seat punched him in the chest.

The passenger, identified as Sloan, then arose from his seat and pulled his right arm back as if he was going to punch him again.

The flight attendant “took a defensive posture and attempted to cover his body and create space from Sloan when he felt a punch to the back left side of his head, near his ear,” the affidavit said. Sloan then sat back down “as if nothing had happened.”

The flight carrying 80 passengers and five crew members diverted back to Honolulu where deputy sheriffs escorted Sloan off the plane and arrested him.

In a memo sent to employees, Hawaiian Airlines President and Chief Executive Officer Peter Ingram said the flight attendant was shaken up but otherwise doing well.

That afternoon, a second unruly-passenger incident occurred on a separate Hawaiian Airlines flight to Seattle.

Approximately two hours after Flight HA 22 departed Honolulu, the captain was informed that a female passenger allegedly refused to comply with the federal face mask mandate and “caused a disturbance to other guests,” said Hawaiian Airlines spokeswoman Tara Shimooka.

A total of 202 passengers and 10 crew members were on the flight at the time.

Flight attendants and an off-duty pilot de-escalated the situation. As a precautionary measure, the captain decided to return to Honolulu.

The plane arrived at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport just before 8:30 p.m. Toni Schwartz, spokeswoman of the state Department of Public Safety, said deputy sheriffs escorted the passenger off the plane without incident, and custody was turned over to federal authorities.

A spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Honolulu field office declined to comment on the case.

In the third incident, the emergency landing was prompted by the captain receiving a notification of low oil pressure.

At around 9:06 p.m. Thursday local time, Flight HA 460 carrying 67 passengers and 12 crew members left Incheon International Airport, with a scheduled arrival time at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport at around 11:30 a.m. Friday local time. Nearly six hours into the flight, the captain received the notification and “out of an abundance of caution, elected to divert the Airbus A330 aircraft to Henderson Field on Sand Island at Midway Atoll,” according to a news release from Hawaiian Airlines.

The designated diversion airport is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

A replacement aircraft, HA 8459, dispatched from Honolulu and landed at Midway Atoll just before 4 p.m. local time Friday with a team of mechanics and crew members. The replacement flight with the stranded passengers was scheduled to arrive at around 9 p.m. Friday.

Hawaiian Airlines will inspect the original aircraft before ferrying it back to Honolulu.

The airline’s incidents with the disruptive passengers appear to be following a trend that has been happening around the country.

To date, the Federal Aviation Administration has received more than 4,300 reports of unruly passengers.

Interfering with a flight crew member carries penalties of up to 20 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine.

A deputy chief staff member of U.S. Rep. Kai Kahele, D-Hawaii, was on the Hilo- bound flight at the time of the alleged unprovoked attack.

Coincidentally, Kahele was presiding over the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Aviation Subcommittee hearing on “air rage” and its effects on workers, airlines and airports at the time.

It’s disturbing that these disruptive and, in many cases, violent incidents of passenger behavior are happening, Kahele said Friday during a phone interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

The Aviation Subcommittee plans to look into creating a national registry that would include individuals who have been banned or put on a no-fly list for violent or disruptive behavior and those convicted of interfering with a flight crew member. The list would be accessible to all airlines.

Subcommittee members also discussed noncompliance with the federal face mask mandate by defiant passengers aboard aircraft. “That’s definitely causing a lot of issues,” Kahele said.

“If you can’t follow the rules, then you shouldn’t be flying,” he added.

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Star-Advertiser staff reporter Mark Ladao contributed to this story.

Steven Sloan Jr. complaint by Honolulu Star-Advertiser