A man boarded a British Airways flight from Heathrow to Oslo without a passport, ticket or boarding pass. Photo / Getty Images
A man boarded a British Airways flight from Heathrow to Oslo without a passport, ticket or boarding pass. Photo / Getty Images
A man boarded a flight at Heathrow without a ticket, boarding pass or passport.
The unnamed individual walked on to the 7.20am British Airways (BA) flight to Oslo, Norway, on Saturday local time after tailgating other passengers through security and evading checks at the departure gate.
An aviation expert describedthe incident as a “significant lapse in security”, as a witness reported that cabin crew only detected the interloper because the flight was full and he kept sitting in passengers’ assigned seats.
Police arrested the unnamed man, airport sources said, adding that he had passed through “full security screening” before reaching the gate.
The unnamed man had pretended to be with a family who passed through the final passport check at the gate before boarding the Airbus A320, it is understood.
Mike LaCorte, who was aboard BA Flight BA768 with his wife for a break in the Norwegian capital, saw the entire incident from his seat in row one at the very front of the short-haul flight’s cabin.
“This chap moved around until the plane filled up. And then a member of the cabin crew went over to speak to them.
And it was clear that this person didn’t have any boarding pass or anything at all,” said LaCorte, who is chief executive of private investigation company Conflict International.
He described the interloper as a white man in his “late twenties or early thirties, a scruffy solo traveller” wearing an “off-white tracksuit” and carrying a “small” rucksack.
Sources familiar with the incident said the man had tailgated his way through automatic gates at the entrance to Terminal Three’s security screening area.
Passengers must scan their boarding passes to be allowed into the queue for security checks intended to detect any prohibited items such as weapons or explosives.
After passing security – meaning he was not detected carrying any banned items – the man fooled the BA check-in agent by posing as a member of a family who had their passports and boarding passes inspected in the usual way.
Airport security, shortly followed by armed police, arrived and removed the man from the airliner, LaCorte said.
“The cabin crew came in and tried to map where the seats were that he was sitting at, and then searched the cabin overhead bins,” he added.
He is understood to have tailgated other passengers through security and the departure gate. Photo / Getty Images
All genuine passengers then had to pass through security again. Sniffer dogs searched the airliner before the rightful passengers were allowed to board again, LaCorte said.
“It was, like, three hours,” he said. “How did he get on in the first place? It’s the risk.”
Philip Baum, a visiting professor of aviation security at Coventry University, said the airline was responsible for checking that all people aboard their aeroplanes were allowed to be there.
Speaking about Saturday’s incident, he said: “It demonstrates a significant lapse in security and in the verification of each passenger and their right to be boarding an aircraft.
“There are measures on board the aircraft that obviously prevent the person reaching the flight deck. But every airline should be able to account 100% for every passenger and every person that is on board that aircraft.”
BA768’s Saturday departure from Heathrow was delayed by three hours and 20 minutes, according to flight-tracking website Flight Radar 24.
LaCorte believes that BA should have done more to compensate passengers for the delay.
“I think it was 135 [Norwegian] Kroners, or whatever it is, which is equivalent to £10,” he added, saying that the voucher was a code that had to be redeemed in a mobile app.
Heathrow Airport and BA declined to comment.
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor’s Picks, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week’s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here.
