A Florida man decided to skip buying a ticket and instead climbed a fence to sneak onto a JetBlue plane at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. According to a police booking report, 32-year-old Sammuel Lackey scaled a perimeter fence on the night of Saturday, Aug. 1, and found a 2012 Airbus A320 undergoing routine maintenance. He boarded the plane and briefly hid in the lavatory before falling asleep.
Disruption to Flight Operations
The maintenance crews finished their work around 4:25 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 2, and locked up the aircraft, unaware that Lackey was still on board. When JetBlue employees boarded the plane about an hour later, they found Lackey sound asleep. The incident caused a disruption to flight operations, with the aircraft unable to be towed to its departure gate. As a result, JetBlue had to swap in another plane, incurring a cost of $2,400.96.
Lackey was booked into the Broward County Main Jail and faces charges of unarmed burglary of an occupied conveyance, criminal mischief over $1,000, and interrupting or impairing critical infrastructure. His total bond was set at $10,000.
Original reporting: Tampa Free Press — read the source article.
