A month after a woman was caught stowing away on a Delta Air Lines flight headed to France, ABC News has confirmed another unticketed individual was caught on a flight headed to Hawaii, this time on Christmas Eve.
The recent stowaway was apprehended after boarding a flight from Seattle to Honolulu on Dec. 24, according to the airline.
Delta flight 487 was taxiing for departure when it returned to the gate after the crew learned of an unticketed passenger onboard. The identity of the individual has not been released.
“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,” Delta said in a statement to ABC News.
The flight was delayed more than two hours as TSA conducted additional security checks and rescreened all passengers, according to the airline.
Law enforcement responded to Seattle–Tacoma International Airport and detained the unticketed passenger.
According to the airport officials, the stowaway exited the plane after it returned to the gate, and the Port of Seattle Police located them in a terminal restroom with the help of video surveillance.
The passenger was arrested for trespassing and booked into South Correctional Entity jail, according to Seattle Tacoma International Airport authorities.
In their investigation, airport authorities found that the stowaway had gotten through a TSA security checkpoint the evening before the flight without a boarding pass but was properly screened otherwise.
In a statement to ABC News, TSA also said the individual had gone through the standard screening and “did not possess any prohibited items” but that they had bypassed the identity verification and boarding status stations and boarded the plane without a boarding pass.
The agency 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.”
TSA said it is working with the Port of Seattle Police on this incident.
Additionally, Delta said the investigation is ongoing, but preliminary findings suggest the passenger boarded the plane without showing a boarding pass at the gate.
News of the second Delta Air Lines stowaway comes after Svetlana Dali, a Russian national, was caught stowing away on a Delta Air Lines flight from the United States to France in November.
Dali had snuck aboard Delta Flight 264, which departed from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and was bound for Charles-de-Gaulle International Airport in Paris.
According to a statement from the French Interior Ministry at the time, “She was not admitted to French territory due to lack of a valid travel document (visa) and was placed in the waiting area for the time necessary for her re-routing to the United States since she held a valid US residence permit.”
Just over a week later, Dali was arrested again on Dec. 4 after cutting off her ankle monitor and trying to sneak into Canada, law enforcement sources told ABC News at the time.
The person she was staying with in Philadelphia discovered the bracelet cut and alerted authorities.
Dali was apprehended in Buffalo, New York, while aboard a Greyhound bus trying to cross into Canada.
