A stowaway managed to fly from New York to Paris for free by changing from one bathroom to another during the flight.
The unidentified woman reportedly boarded Delta Airlines Flight 264 after passing two security checkpoints at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Tuesday night, despite not having a boarding pass.
She was captured shortly before arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport, around 12:00 p.m. on Wednesday, after more than seven hours in the air.
She reportedly spent the entire flight pacing back and forth between the four bathrooms on board, raising suspicion among some passengers who said they initially thought she was simply sick.
The cabin crew realized she was not one of the 375 passengers when she did not show them a boarding pass.
The local police took the woman off the plane as soon as the plane landed., NBC information.
The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said the woman had completed a full security screening at a checkpoint before boarding the flight, as she was not carrying any prohibited items.
The authorities confirmed cnn that he bypassed two identity and boarding status verification stations to board the plane, but it is unclear how he managed to pass these checkpoints.
The unidentified woman reportedly boarded Delta Airlines Flight 264 after passing through two security checkpoints at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Tuesday night, despite not having a boarding pass (image archive of a Delta flight).
The people on board were only informed about the stowaway once the plane landed in Paris, according to Rob Jackson, who was a passenger on the Delta flight.
“The first announcement to passengers that there was a problem was when we parked at the gate and we were all ordered to remain seated because French police were boarding the plane to deal with ‘a serious security issue,'” he said. cnn.
The captain informed the passengers that they had to wait on board until the problem with the “extra passenger” was “resolved.”
According to Jackson, the flight was full and there were no extra seats where the woman could sit.
Delta Airlines said in a statement that it was conducting a “thorough investigation into what may have occurred and will work collaboratively with other aviation and law enforcement stakeholders to that end,” after promising that nothing was “of greater importance than safety and security issues. ‘