Pop singer Howie Day was ordered on Wednesday to complete an alcohol counseling program and serve one year of probation after being charged with interfering with a flight crew on a plane from Dallas to Boston in December. The 25-year-old singer will not face jail time.

Day, a Brewer, Maine native, was heading home for the holidays on American Airlines Flight 2250 on Dec. 21 when he allegedly became verbally abusive to aircraft crew. Prosecutors said the singer, best known for his Top 40 hit “Collide,” also smoked a cigarette and kicked the backs of chairs.

Day’s attorney Paul V. Kelly claimed Day did not smoke and had a loud altercation with another passenger, not the flight crew, reports the Associated Press. Kelly also said that the singer had taken a sleeping pill to help him rest during the flight, then had a couple of alcoholic drinks. He argued that the prosecutors’ description of the incident was “inaccurate and overblown.”

Suffolk District Attorney Dan Conley has ordered Day to write letters of apology to American Airlines, as well as the passengers, captain and an attendant aboard the flight as part of the conditions of his probation. If Day complies, the charge of interfering with a flight crew will be dismissed.






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