A man was arrested after scaling an airport fence, climbing onto a parked plane, and then sleeping onboard, only to be discovered hours later, hiding in the lavatory.
Based on surveillance video reviewed by police, at 9:51PM on Saturday night, a man was seen walking on a road near the Jetscape maintenance facility, where a JetBlue plane was parked overnight. The man scaled the eight foot fence that was even topped with barbed wire, and then gained access to the “secure” part of the field. It’s worth noting that this maintenance facility is in a rather remote part of the airport, away from the terminal.
Since the plane had maintenance performed on it, one of the rear doors was open, with portable stairs placed against the aircraft, to allow access for employees. Those are the stairs that the 32-year-old is believed to have used to board the plane.
He wasn’t discovered for hours. At around 4:25AM on Sunday morning, the aircraft’s doors were closed, so that it could be towed back to the terminal area, in anticipation of a regularly scheduled flight. The man remained onboard the aircraft while this happened, before eventually being discovered by employees performing security checks.
According to the complaint affidavit, the man’s discovery resulted in a disruption of service that cost JetBlue around $2,400. The man was charged with unarmed burglary of an unoccupied conveyance, criminal mischief, and interruption of critical infrastructure. He is currently in jail, on a $10,000 bond.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are now investigating this incident.
This is a concerning airport security lapse
This is purely speculation on my part, but I’d assume that this was more a mental health episode than anything with actual bad intent.
The fact that this person scaled an eight foot fence with barbed wire is quite the feat, so I’m not sure this necessarily falls in the category of “how could they not have prevented this?” It’s not like there was a hole in the fence, this guy was just really good at climbing, and didn’t seem to be deterred by the barbed wire.
Now, there should probably be cameras covering the entire perimeter of the airport and presumably some sort of alerts if there’s anything suspicious. But in the scheme of things, this hardly seems like the biggest airport security gap we’ve seen.
I think the creepier aspect of this is how odd it must’ve been for the person who discovered the man hiding in the lavatory. It’s standard for aircraft cabin safety checks to be performed before a plane reenters service, though I imagine that when you’re walking through the cabin and opening lavatory doors, you don’t expect anyone to actually be in them.
I’d say this is at least a little less concerning than the recent situation at Košice International Airport (KSC) in Slovakia, where a man was found to be sleeping onboard an Austrian Airlines plane. What made that worse is that he wandered the terminal, walked across the apron, etc., and seemingly no one did anything about it. That was much more “out in the open.”
Bottom line
A man scaled a fence at Fort Lauderdale Airport, entered a maintenance facility, and boarded a JetBlue aircraft that had its door open, with stairs pulled up to them. He reportedly spent over six hours on the aircraft. Then when the plane was finally ready to enter service again, a security inspection was performed, which is when he was discovered.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.
