Yet another stowaway has been caught on a Delta Air Lines flight, this time boarding a flight from Seattle to Hawaii without a ticket on Christmas Eve.
A month after a woman was caught stowing away on a Delta flight heading from the U.S. to France, several news outlets confirm an unidentified individual was apprehended trying to do the same thing.
Delta told ABC News that Flight 487 was taxiing at Seattle/Tacoma International Airport on Dec. 24 when the illegal passenger was discovered.
“As there are no matters more important than safety and security, Delta people followed procedures to have an unticketed passenger removed from the flight and then apprehended,” a Delta spokesperson told People. “We apologize to our customers for the delay in their travels and thank them for their patience and cooperation.”
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) told the outlet the “individual did go through standard screening and did not possess any prohibited items.”
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Perry Cooper, an airport media relations spokesperson, told CNN the person went through security the previous evening, on Dec. 23. The following day, they “gained access to the loading bridge without a scanned ticket at the gate.”
“The individual bypassed the identity verification and boarding status stations and boarded an aircraft at Seattle/Tacoma International (SEA) without a boarding pass,” the TSA continued in its statement.
The incident caused the flight to take off about two hours and 15 minutes behind schedule, Fox Business reports.
It remains unclear how the passenger managed to evade security checkpoints without a ticket and make their way aboard the aircraft.
The passenger was arrested for trespassing and booked into South Correctional Entity jail, according airport authorities.
Second Delta stowaway in a month
In November, Svetlana Dali, a 57-year-old Russian national living in the U.S., was taken into custody in Paris after she made her way onto a Delta Air Lines flight at New York’s JFK International Airport without a boarding pass on Nov. 26 and flew all the way to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, apparently concealing herself by spending long periods of time in the plane’s multiple bathrooms.
She was detained when authorities discovered she didn’t have a valid visa to enter the country, French National Police said at the time.
After two unsuccessful attempts to deport her back to the U.S. — postponed after she “started screaming” and kicking up a fuss once aboard the departing planes — she was finally brought back to American soil on Dec. 4 and arrested by the FBI.
Svetlana Dali is seen in a mugshot.
United States District Court
Despite a Dec. 6 court hearing that ordered her not to leave Philadelphia and being outfitted with an ankle monitor until her trial, Dali was not deterred and was caught shortly after trying to sneak her way into Canada, reportedly cutting off her ankle monitor before boarding a Greyhound bus destined to the Great White North.
Dali was able to get through an advanced imaging technology body scanner at JFK airport and dodge document and ID checks during the security process.
A senior law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told CNN that, at the gate, Dali successfully blended in with a large group of other travellers and slipped by staff without a ticket.