A stowaway who allegedly boarded a Delta Air Lines flight without a boarding pass wasn’t discovered until shortly before the plane touched down in Paris.
The unidentified woman was caught onboard the fully booked Delta flight 264 on Wednesday (27 November) when a flight attendant became suspicious of the passenger’s long stints in the aircraft bathrooms.
She had bypassed two Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security checks at New York’s JFK without a ticket before boarding the Paris-bound plane, which departed at 10.37pm EST on Tuesday evening.
Travellers are required to show an ID or passport and a boarding pass before they can go through airport security, and it is standard procedure for airlines to check boarding passes at the departure gate.
The stowaway was reportedly found in the cabin just before 11pm local time – over six hours into the almost seven-and-a-half-hour transatlantic journey to Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Fellow passenger Rob Jackson wrote on Instagram: “Sooo... we landed in Paris and the crew told us we had to remain seated while the French border police came onto the plane. We somehow flew all the way from New York to Paris with a stowaway. This woman somehow got on the plane and hid in a lavatory during takeoff and wasn’t detected until we were about to land.”
A TSA spokesperson said: “TSA can confirm that an individual without a boarding pass completed security screening (including on-person and bags) without any prohibited items. The individual bypassed two identity verification and boarding status stations and boarded the aircraft.”
The incident is being investigated by federal authorities.
Delta said: “Nothing is of greater importance than matters of safety and security. That’s why Delta is conducting an exhaustive investigation of what may have occurred and will work collaboratively with other aviation stakeholders and law enforcement to that end,” reported the New York Post.
It’s not the first time a flyer has evaded airport security checks to gain access to the cabin.
In February, a woman who boarded an American Airlines flight bound for Los Angeles LAX from Nashville Airport allegedly did so without a boarding pass or identification after jumping a barrier to bypass airport security measures.
The unidentified female flyer slipped past an unattended section of a TSA checkpoint to take the five-hour flight on 7 February.
American Airlines discovered the security breach during the flight to the US west coast, where the woman was arrested for questioning.
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