Stowaway busted mid-flight after evading airport security sent back to U.S.

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A stowaway managed to sneak onto a Delta Air Lines flight from New York to Paris without a passport or boarding pass.

The woman, whose identity has not been made public, was able to evade security at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, get past gate agents and board the plane to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport on Tuesday.

A flight attendant ultimately discovered the stowaway in one of the plane’s bathrooms.

“Apparently, she hid in a lavatory all the way at the rear of the aircraft when we departed JFK,” Rob Jackson, a passenger on the full flight, told CNN.

“I overheard the flight attendants talking about it with the pilots,” he said. “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.”

Passengers on the Delta flight were not alerted about the stowaway situation until the plane landed in Paris, he added.

In a video recorded by Jackson, the captain can be heard saying, “Folks, this is the captain, we are just waiting for the police to come on board. They may be here now and they directed us to keep everyone on the airplane until we sort out the extra passenger that’s on the plane.”

The woman is between 55 and 60 years old and holds a Russian passport, according to CNN.

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She bypassed both the document check podium and a gate agent, TSA spokesperson Daniel Velez told ABC News, though he did not detail how she was able to do so.

However, the woman was fully screened at a security checkpoint at JFK, it was later determined, which means she did not have any prohibited items in her possession or otherwise pose a security risk, the spokesperson noted.

“TSA takes any incidents that occur at any of our checkpoints nationwide seriously,” Velez told the outlet, adding they are conducting their own independent review surrounding “the circumstances of this incident at our travel document checker station at JFK.”

The French National Police told ABC News, “A passenger of Russian nationality was smuggled onto a flight from NY (JFK) to Roissy-Charles de Gaulle.”

“(She) was refused entry to France for lack of a valid travel document, and was placed in a waiting area for the time needed to return her to the United States as she held a valid U.S. residence permit,” the National Police said in a statement.

According to the outlet, the FBI is also aware of the incident.