A stowaway accused of sneaking aboard a Delta flight from JFK Airport to Paris is expected to return to the U.S. Saturday after failing to receive asylum in the City of Light, officials said Friday.
The unidentified woman, who is between 55 and 60, is expected to return to JFK in Queens on Saturday evening, Port Authority sources said.
Once she is back in the U.S., the woman faces both state and federal charges. The charges are expected to include theft of services for taking a flight without paying, the source said.
On Tuesday night, during one of the heaviest travel days of the year, the woman managed to get onto Delta Flight 264 heading to Charles de Gaulle Airport.
“The individual bypassed two identity verification and boarding status stations and boarded the aircraft,” a Transportation Security Administration spokesman said.
The flight wasn’t full, so the unregistered passenger avoided detection by spending the flight between an empty seat and the plane’s rear lavatories, officials said.
But halfway through the trip, a flight attendant wondered why the woman was spending so much time in the bathroom and quickly learned she had never bought a ticket.
The woman was taken into custody when the plane landed in France Wednesday. The captain announced that passengers had to remain in their seats so police could come and take the illicit flier into custody, passenger Rob Jackson told CNN.
“I overheard the flight attendants talking about it with the pilots,” he recalled. “They said this person was in one lavatory and then would exit and walk to a different lavatory and go in there for a long time.”
Once under arrest in Paris, the woman asked for asylum, which was denied Thursday. The woman, who has a Russian passport, had requested asylum in France a few years earlier but was denied, Paris officials told CNN.
As the woman is brought back to the U.S., the “TSA will independently review the circumstances of this incident at our travel document checker station at JFK,” an agency spokesman said.
The woman was physically screened before the flight and boarded without any prohibited items, the TSA said.
Passengers at JFK Airport typically pass through at least two boarding pass checks: one at the TSA screening checkpoint before entering the boarding area and another at the gate, which is performed by the airline.
In a statement, Delta said: “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.”
With News Wire Services
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