Flight attendants on a Delta Air Lines flight from New York JFK to Paris Charles de Gaulle, which was discovered to have a stowaway onboard just minutes before the plane was due to land in France, were meant to have checked the toilets for hitchhikers before the aircraft pushed back from the gate.
The female stowaway managed to remain undetected aboard Delta flight DL264 for most of the seven-hour transatlantic crossing despite the fact that there wasn’t a spare seat aboard the plane.
It is currently believed that the stowaway went from toilet to toilet for most of the flight, and flight attendants didn’t grow suspicious until the flight was near its conclusion.
The flight departed New York JFK at around 11:00 p.m. on Tuesday night and landed in Paris on Wednesday morning. Local law enforcement was called to take the woman into custody.
Most commercial airlines have specific procedures in place designed to prevent precisely this kind of scenario whereby a ticketless passenger hides in an onboard lavatory before departure.
In the case of Delta Air Lines, flight attendants are expected to check the toilets just before the plane pushes back from the gate to ensure there aren’t any passengers or stowaways in the lavatories as the plane is taxiing for takeoff.
Some airlines also require flight attendants to lock the bathrooms off until the aircraft is airborne, although this is not a standard operating procedure at Delta.
Given the gravity of this major security lapse, Delta says it is conducting an “exhaustive investigation” to get to the bottom of how the stowaway first managed to evade detection of gate agents to board the plane without a boarding pass and then remain onboard a packed plane, out of sight of the flight attendants.
A spokesperson for Delta said the airline is urgently working with “other aviation stakeholders and law enforcement” to get to the bottom of the stowaway mystery, although the TSA reassured worried travelers that the ticketless passenger underwent standard security screening so would not have been able to board the plane with any prohibited items.
How flight attendants failed to spot the stowaway despite standard operating procedures requiring them to check the onboard bathrooms prior to pushback will likely be a major focus of the investigation.
That being said, it’s not uncommon for ticketed passengers to be in the bathrooms just at the point that flight attendants carry out these stowaway checks. It could be that a flight attendant forgot to recheck the bathroom or was otherwise distracted.
The late departure time could also be a contributing factor due to flight attendant tiredness.
In March, a 26-year-old man managed to sneak onboard a Delta Air Lines flight in Salt Lake City without a ticket after he surreptitiously took a photo of a young girl’s boarding pass using his mobile phone and then used the barcode to scan himself through the boarding gate.
Wicliff Yves Fleurizard boarded the plane and immediately hid in an onboard lavatory, hoping that once everyone had finished boarding, he could leave the lavatory and take the first spare seat he spotted.
Unfortunately for Fleurizard, the flight was fully booked, and flight attendants became suspicious when he walked up and down the aisle looking for a spare seat to jump in. Fleurizard was charged with a national security crime and faces a potential maximum sentence of ten years in prison.
Whether or not the flight attendants on Delta flight DL264 face disciplinary action will likely depend on whether investigators decide that their actions were wilful or not.
In the aviation industry, many airlines operate what is referred to as a ‘just culture’ in which staff are permitted to admit honest mistakes without fear or reprisal. A just culture does not, however, let deliberate wrongdoers off the hook.
