Delta Air Lines Boeing 767-400 aircraft spotted on final approach flying before landing at the runway of London Heathrow Airport LHR in the United Kingdom arriving from Atlanta, USA. The wide body B767 airplane has the registration tail number N840MH, powered by 2x GE jet engines.
A stowaway bypassed screening measures before being discovered on a flight from New York to Paris amid the Thanksgiving travel rush, authorities said Wednesday.
The unidentified woman was on Delta flight 264 from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris on Tuesday.
A source with knowledge of the incident told NBC News that she was removed from the aircraft by law enforcement after it landed in Paris.
The woman — who got on the flight without a ticket — bypassed two "identity verification and boarding status stations and boarded the aircraft," a spokesperson for the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement.
She completed a full security screening before boarding, the spokesperson said, meaning she did not have any prohibited items in tow and did not pose a security threat.
It is not clear how the woman bypassed ticketing stations to board the aircraft, but authorities said that in order to be at a departure gate, a person must have cleared the security checkpoint.
The flight took off from JFK at 10:37 p.m. ET and landed in Paris at 12:00 p.m. CET, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.
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"Nothing is of greater importance than matters of safety and security," Delta Airlines said in a statement. "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."
No other details were given about the woman.
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