A passenger who recently fooled authorities and flew from New York to Paris on a Delta flight without a ticket or relevant documents is still in France.
She was supposed to be deported to the US on a return Delta flight, but it seems that the French authorities have a tricky case on their hands.
Last week, a 57-year-old woman boarded a Delta Air Lines flight out of New York JFK Airport to Paris Charles de Gaulle.
In an alarming breach of security, she managed to cross all crucial checkpoints at the airport where documents such as boarding pass and visa are verified, passed the TSA security checkpoint, and boarded the aircraft.
The woman is a Russian citizen but a resident of the United States. She seemingly took advantage of the traffic rush at JFK due to the Thanksgiving holiday travel when airport officials are overwhelmed by an increased workload.
The TSA said, however, that she was screened thoroughly and, as such, did not pose a threat to the aircraft.
Once airborne, the flight attendants noticed something suspicious about the passenger and figured out she did not have a seat.
Upon landing, she was detained and was supposed to be deported to the United States on a return flight.
However, according to NBC News, the passenger in question caused a disturbance on her return flight to NYC and was asked to deboard. My has asked Delta for further comments on the matter.
While not an everyday occurrence, there have been numerous incidents when people have tried to hop on a plane without paying for the ticket.
Earlier this year, a man tried to board a Delta flight at Salt Lake City International Airport by using a photograph of the boarding pass of a different passenger that he took from his phone.
As convenient as digital boarding passes are, they have also resulted in an increase in stowaway incidents because individuals can copy the data. My has analyzed this in detail in the article below.
Another similar incident came to light in February this year when a person boarded an American Airlines flight from Nashville to Los Angeles without carrying a boarding pass.
Thankfully, there were no security threats on any of these flights, but it is concerning that people can bypass multiple checkpoints to get inside an airplane without a ticket.
Not every stowaway takes the same approach to sneaking inside the aircraft. Some have tried to do it the more dangerous way by hiding in the aircraft’s landing gear and even losing their lives in the process.
These parts of the plane are often nonpressurized, where temperatures can drop to as low as -50C to -63C, well below what the human body can endure.
There’s also the risk of falling out of the gear compartment with disastrous consequences. In 2022, a man was found dead in the undercarriage of a TUI Airways aircraft that flew from Banjul International Airport (BJL) in Gambia to London Gatwick International Airport (LGW).
