Stowaway manages to fly from New York to Paris for free by switching from one toilet to another during the flight
A stowaway has managed to fly from New York to Paris for free by switching from one toilet to another during the flight.
The unidentified woman is believed to have boarded Delta Airlines Flight 264 on Tuesday evening after passing through two security checkpoints at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport – despite not having a boarding pass.
She was only captured at around noon on Wednesday shortly before arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport, after more than seven hours in the air.
She reportedly spent the entire flight going back and forth between the four onboard toilets, causing some passengers to become suspicious and say they initially thought she was just sick.
The cabin crew realized she was not one of the 375 passengers when she failed to show them a boarding pass.
As soon as the plane landed, the woman was removed from the plane by local police, NBC reports.
The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said the woman had undergone a full security screening at a checkpoint before boarding the plane because she was not carrying any prohibited items.
The authorities have confirmed this CNN that she bypassed two identity verifications and boarding status stations to board the plane, but it is unclear how she got past these checkpoints.
The unidentified woman is believed to have boarded Delta Airlines Flight 264 on Tuesday evening after passing through two security checkpoints at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport – despite not having a boarding pass (file image from a Delta flight)
According to Rob Jackson, who was a passenger on the Delta flight, those on board were not told about the stowaway until the plane landed in Paris.
‘The first announcement to passengers that there was a problem was when we parked at the gate and they instructed us all to remain seated as French police were boarding the plane to deal with ‘a serious security problem’ , he said. CNN.
The captain told the passengers to wait on board until the problem with the ‘extra passenger’ was ‘resolved’.
According to Jackson, the flight was fully booked and there were no extra seats where the woman could have sat.
Delta Airlines said in a statement that it was conducting an “exhaustive investigation into what may have occurred and will work with other aviation stakeholders and law enforcement to do so,” after pledging that nothing was “of greater concern than issues of safety and security. ‘