Steven Slater claimed that his quick exit followed a confrontation with a passenger, but no one aboard the plane at the time corroborated his story.

His dramatic resignation turned Slater into an ironic folk hero, but passengers interviewed later said that he was mostly rude during the short flight from Pittsburgh. His lawyer later claimed that what had driven Slater's anger had been an incident before takeoff when he was hit in the head as passengers were loading luggage into the overhead bins.

Slater received a sentence of one year's probation, community service, and was fined $10,000 to reimburse JetBlue for the cost of repacking the emergency slide.