Yet another stowaway managed to board a major airline’s plane – renewing serious questions and concerns about airport safety during the busiest travel season of the year.
This time, a stowaway tried to hitch a ride on Delta Air Lines Flight 487 at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Christmas Eve.
The unticketed passenger was discovered while the plane was still taxiing out for takeoff to Honolulu, Delta Air Lines told CNN. The Transportation Security Administration and the Port of Seattle confirmed the incident to CNN.
The incident came less than a month after another stowaway boarded a Delta airplane Thanksgiving week. That unticketed passenger made it all the way from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Paris before she was eventually arrested.
And on Christmas Eve, a body was found in a wheel well of a United Airlines plane shortly after it traveled from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and landed in Maui.
Hiding in a plane’s wheel well is the most common method used by stowaways, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said. Stowaways often get crushed when the landing gear retracts, and oxygen levels plummet as a plane reaches higher altitudes.
In the Seattle incident, the stowaway went through a TSA security checkpoint the evening before the flight but wasn’t holding a boarding pass, an airport spokesperson told CNN.
The next day, the person “gained access to the loading bridge without a scanned ticket at the gate,” airport media relations manager Perry Cooper said.
Once the person was discovered, the Airbus A321neo returned to the gate to remove the unticketed passenger, Delta said.
Port of Seattle police officers were dispatched to gate B1 at the airport around 1:05 p.m. for “a report of a suspicious circumstance” on the Delta flight.
“The aircraft returned to the terminal and the subject departed the aircraft,” the Port of Seattle said. “With the help of video surveillance, POSPD were able to locate the subject in a terminal restroom. The subject was arrested for criminal trespass.”
It was not immediately clear why authorities were not waiting at the gate for the stowaway to deboard.
The unticketed passenger didn’t have any prohibited items, the TSA told CNN.
“The aircraft was swept by K9 as well as all areas in the terminal accessed by the subject,” the Port of Seattle said. “The aircraft was deplaned and all passengers were escorted by TSA to return to the security checkpoint for rescreening.”
Delta said the flight was delayed by two hours and 15 minutes. After the rescreening, it continued to Honolulu at 3 p.m.
“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,” the Atlanta-based airline said in a statement. “We apologize to our customers for the delay in their travels and thank them for their patience and cooperation.”
TSA said it “takes any incidents that occur at any of our checkpoints nationwide seriously. TSA will independently review the circumstances of this incident at our travel document checker station at Seattle/Tacoma International.”
CNN’s Holly Yan, Pete Muntean, Alexandra Skores, Amanda Musa and Nicole Chavez contributed to this report.