CHANTILLY, VIRGINIA (Fox News) — Federal authorities say they’ve discovered a stowaway who arrived at a Washington-area airport in the cargo hold of a flight from Ethiopia.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Steve Sapp says ground personnel at Dulles International Airport were pulling baggage from Ethiopian Airlines Flight 500 when they noticed an arm sticking out.
Sapp says the stowaway was an Ethiopian man who was exhausted and dehydrated. He was taken to Reston Hospital Center and is now being held at a federal detention center.
Sapp says the man has been charged with being a stowaway and will be deported, but is not a security threat.
He says the flight departed from Addis Ababa and stopped in Rome before landing at Dulles shortly after 9 a.m. Saturday.
U.S. to send back stowaway on plane from Ethiopia
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A stowaway on a flight from Ethiopia was being detained in Washington and will be sent back, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.
Baggage handlers discovered the man, described as in his late 30s, in the luggage compartment of an Ethiopian Airways Boeing 767 that landed at Dulles International Airport on Saturday, the newspaper said.
The stowaway was dehydrated and exhausted but a Customs and Border Protection spokesman said he did not appear to present a threat, the Post reported.
Customs spokesman Steve Sapp told the newspaper the man, who was not identified, would face an administrative charge and would be sent back on an Ethiopian Airways plane.
A U.S. Customs official did not immediately return a call seeking comment.