Officials stated that a person got on a Delta Air Lines flight from New York City to Paris without a boarding pass.
CBS News learned that the woman got on Delta Flight No. 264 from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. She was caught in Paris after being found while the plane was in the air.
A passenger posted a video on social media of the captain talking on the plane’s intercom after landing in Paris. He said, “We’re just waiting for the police to come on board; they may be here now; they’ve told us to keep everyone on the plane until we figure out what to do with the extra passenger.”
A source familiar with the situation says that the flight attendant found the possible stowaway while she was making frequent and long trips to the Boeing 767-400ER’s different bathrooms during the mostly full but not sold-out flight. With 238 seats, the 767-400 is one of Delta’s biggest wide-body planes and one of the largest in the company’s fleet.
Flight attendants can look at the flight’s manifest, which names passengers and their seat numbers. This lets the crew confirm that the woman was likely a stowaway who didn’t have a ticket for the flight. The source said that there were three pilots and eight flight attendants on Tuesday’s trip. Delta wouldn’t say how many people were on board because they were still looking into what happened.
The woman’s name was not given out right away
A Transportation Security Administration source told CBS News that the woman went through an advanced imaging technology body scanner at a JFK Airport stop. She seemed to have skipped the part of the TSA process where they checked her ID and documents. A source said that her bags were also checked for things that weren’t allowed before she went to the gate and sneaked on the flight.
A spokesperson for the TSA told CBS News that they could “confirm that a person without a boarding pass was physically screened without any prohibited items.” The person got on the plane without going through two name verification and boarding status stations.
A spokesperson for TSA said, “Any incidents that happen at any of our checkpoints across the country are taken very seriously.” “TSA will independently review the circumstances of this incident at our travel document checker station at JFK.”
A person must have passed through a TSA security checkpoint before they can go to a flight departure gate to board.
It’s not clear how the woman got on the plane after going through TSA security without showing Delta staff a boarding pass or passport.
In a statement, Delta said, “We believe that safety and security are the most important things.” “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.”
Both French police and the TSA are looking into it separately. For not going through the paper check process, the woman could be given a civil penalty or fine.
New technology called e-gates is being put in place at airports. These use biometrics to check travel documents as part of the boarding process for foreign flights. These kinds of tools would have caught the stowaway.
Police say a man got on a Delta flight in Salt Lake City without permission after going through security with a boarding pass for a different airline’s full flight. This happened in March. According to officials, a woman who went through screening also flew on an American Airlines trip from Nashville, Tennessee, to Los Angeles without a ticket in February. She was arrested when she arrived at the airport.
