There have been multiple recent reports of people being discovered stowed away in airplane wheel wells, and others who somehow bypassed boarding pass scans and made it into the passenger cabin without valid tickets.
While these incidents are still extremely rare, it’s unusual to see several so close together, and travelers may be left wondering if there are cracks in the aviation safety system.
Experts say each situation is unique, and stakeholders will investigate how to address any lapses that may have happened, but overall, the feeling is that these incidents pose no real threat to the flying public.
What breaches have happened?
Since late November, there have been at least four high-profile security breaches of commercial aircraft. Two involved stowaways hiding in a plane’s wheel well, and two others involved passengers boarding without proper documents.
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A woman boarded a Delta Air Lines flight from New York to Paris during the Thanksgiving travel rush.
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An unticketed passenger was removed from a Delta Air Lines flight before it left Seattle for Honolulu on Christmas Eve.
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A dead body was found in the wheel well of a United Airlines plane that landed in Hawaii from Chicago on Christmas Eve.
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Two dead bodies were found in the wheel well of a JetBlue Airways plane after it landed in Fort Lauderdale from New York on Monday.
Delta planes sit at gates at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Dec. 8, 2024.
What experts say
While experts say these incidents are certainly disturbing, they emphasize that they are also unusual.
“It’s very dramatic when it happens, but statistically, it’s incredibly rare,” Daniel Cutrer, associate professor of Homeland Security and associate chair of security studies and international affairs at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told USA TODAY.
He said that since 1947, there have been less than 150 documented incidents of wheel-well stowaways, based on Federal Aviation Administration statistics, and those incidents had a 76% fatality rate.
Shawn Pruchnicki, an assistant professor and human performance specialist at the Center for Aviation Studies at The Ohio State University, told USA TODAY that these recent high-profile incidents might not even represent an actual uptick in stowaway situations.
“I don’t think we fully understand why there appears to be an increase. One of the things we need to be mindful of is, with everyone having access to cell phones and iPhones and so forth, it’s a lot easier for this information to get out much quicker,” he said. “In the past, airlines were able to hold this information much closer to their chest than they are now.”
Pruchnicki and Cutrer said airlines and airports handle these incidents on a case-by-case basis.
“Stowaways in wheel wells and whatnot, that’s a physical security issue,” Cutrer said. “It’s very hard to patrol every square inch of a fence 24 hours a day,” but he added that most people who manage to breach the airport’s secure perimeter are arrested for trespassing.
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As for breaches where a person makes it into the passenger cabin without proper documentation, Pruchnicki said we don’t always know exactly how it happens.
“Each individual airport has its own unique problems on how that’s able to happen,” he said. “What has not been released is how people have been able to do this.”
Members of the public may never know for sure exactly how these breaches occur, especially if they involve lapses at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints because the relevant agencies don’t want to broadcast their vulnerabilities.
Are airplanes still secure?
Despite these recent incidents, both Pruchnicki and Cutrer said flying remains safe, and there are no major known threats to passenger safety or security.
“The only impact to passengers is inconvenience,” Cutrer said. “The folks that hide away in the wheel well of an aircraft, they’re incredibly desperate to get away from the life they’re in,” but they’re not usually trying to incite any violence onboard.
Pruchnicki said the industry remains vigilant, however.
“For the cases that we’ve seen, these are people that are just trying to get a free ride, either inside the airplane or outside the airplane,” Pruchnicki said. “I suppose it’s possible that someone could have a more nefarious take on this, which would potentially have a safety implication, but that’s something that we’ve never seen in the industry.”
He and Cutrer emphasized that passengers should remain alert and notify airport authorities if anything on their journey seems amiss.
Zach Wichter is a travel reporter for USA TODAY based in New York. You can reach him at zwichter@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What airline passengers should know about recent stowaway incidents