In the thick of holiday travel, another unticketed passenger attempted to stow away on a Delta Air Lines flight.
The stowaway, who has not been identified by name, boarded a flight from Seattle to Honolulu on Christmas Eve. Atlanta-based Delta said that the unticketed passenger was discovered while the plane was taxing for departure.
Per protocol, the aircraft returned to the gate to remove the unticketed passenger — and law enforcement later apprehended them, the airline added. According to the Port of Seattle, which operates Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, all other passengers were also deplaned and returned to a Transportation Security Administration checkpoint for rescreening “out an abundance of caution.”
Delta flight 487 later left the Seattle airport and continued on to Honolulu — but the trip was delayed by 2 hours and 15 minutes as a result, according to Delta.
“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," an airline spokesperson said in a statement sent to The Associated Press Friday, while thanking customers for their paitence and cooperation.
According to an incident description from the Port of Seattle, the stowaway went through a TSA security checkpoint the evening before the flight, “without a boarding pass but was properly screened.” The individual also gained access to the Tuesday flight's loading bridge without a scanned ticket at the gate, the port said.
The Port of Seattle Police were dispatched shortly after 1 p.m. Tuesday, after a report of "a suspicious circumstance,” the port said. The unidentified passenger departed the aircraft after the plane returned to the terminal, the port said — but police were able to locate the individual in an nearby restroom “with the help of video surveillance.” Authorities later arrested the individual for criminal trespass. It was not immediately clear why the person wasn't apprehended at the gate.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the TSA confirmed that the individual went through standard screening and didn't have any prohibited items. The agency maintained that it “takes any incidents that occur at any of our checkpoints nationwide seriously” and would continue an independent review.
Tuesday's incident comes less than a month after another stowaway boarded a Delta flight last month, during the week of Thanksgiving. Authorities said Svetlana Dali, a Russian woman with permanent U.S. residency, evaded security at John F. Kennedy International Airport and managed to fly to Paris as a stowaway on a Nov. 26 Delta flight. She was arrested when the plane landed and later flown back to the U.S.
