NEW YORK—Authorities are investigating after a Russian national who did not have a ticket boarded a Paris-bound Delta flight at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport this week and was arrested when the plane touched down.
Delta Flight 264 took off Tuesday night from Kennedy and landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris the next day with a stowaway who had somehow bypassed security, authorities said.
Police boarded the plane at the Paris airport, according to a video from a passenger that was shared on social media. “This is the captain. We’re just waiting for the police to come on board,” the pilot can be heard saying.
Daniel Velez, a spokesperson for the Transportation Security Administration, said “an individual without a boarding pass” was screened at Kennedy and was not carrying any prohibited items.
“TSA takes any incidents that occur at any of our checkpoints nationwide seriously,” Velez said. “TSA will independently review the circumstances of this incident at our travel document checker station at JFK.”
A Delta spokesperson said in a statement, “Nothing is of greater importance than matters of safety and security. 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.”
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The French National Police said Friday, “A passenger of Russian nationality was smuggled onto a flight from NY [JFK] to Roissy-Charles de Gaulle.”
The passenger “was refused entry to France for lack of a valid travel document [visa], and was placed in a waiting area for the time needed to return her to the United States as she held a valid U.S. residence permit,” the National Police said in a statement.
A spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Kennedy Airport, declined to comment.
