A 19-year-old student pilot from Northern Virginia who tried repeatedly to enter the cockpit of an Alaska Airlines flight from California to Virginia earlier this month has been charged with interfering with a flight crew, according to court documents.

The man, Nathan Jones, was traveling on Alaska Airlines Flight 322 from San Diego International Airport to Washington Dulles International Airport on March 3 when he “interfered and intimidated flight crew members and attendants,” according to an affidavit filed the next day in the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

His lawyer filed a motion this week arguing that Mr. Jones might not be mentally fit to stand trial.

The affidavit said that Mr. Jones, a passenger in seat 6E, tried three times to go to the front of the plane and “open the aircraft’s cockpit door.” Flight attendants asked for assistance from off-duty law enforcement officers, who restrained Mr. Jones in flex cuffs and sat on either side of him for the rest of the flight.

Flight attendants used a beverage cart to block the cockpit, the affidavit said. When they asked Mr. Jones why he tried to access the cockpit, he said he “was testing them.”

Alaska Airlines said that Mr. Jones “appeared confused” when trying to get into the cockpit “in a nonviolent manner.” No one was injured.