Last week, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Faris ordered Mesa Air Group, the parent of go!, to pay Hawaiian $80 million for misusing confidential business information to launch go! in 2006.

Faris said that Murnane destroyed hundreds of pages of confidential records that would have shown that Mesa misappropriated the Hawaiian records.

Mesa said that Murnane had mistakenly erased the data when he was deleting pornographic material on his work computers.

Murnane, who was placed on leave in September, could not be reached but his attorney Brook Hart called the events "unfortunate" and that Murnane regrets his actions.

Mesa said it plans to appeal Faris' decision.