Man breaks into plane cockpit

A man allegedly broke into an aircraft cockpit at Albany International Airport in New York State, US.

The empty passenger plane was stationary on the tarmac when 23-year-old Stan Johnson from New York broke into the airport, walked down the runway and then snuck onboard via a jetway bridge.

Johnson allegedly then sat in the cockpit, reports WGY, before going into the airport terminal, where he was apprehended by a TSA agent.

He was arrested and has been charged with criminal trespass.

“This individual was out a little bit of a crime spree throughout the day throughout yesterday and into the early hours of this morning,” Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple told WNYT.

“He allegedly stole a car in Boston drove it to the Bronx, where he resides, abandoned the car down in the Bronx…Got up to Albany, was involved in a domestic dispute where he fled, ended up in the airport where he breached the perimeter fence, was able to also breach a jetway where he then went inside of an airplane.”

A spokesperson for the airport said: “We are conducting a full and comprehensive investigation along with Albany County Airport Authority and Transportation Security Administration.”

Local police searched the area but found nothing suspicious.

Johnson was assessed at a local mental health facility before being released.

It’s not the first time someone has trespassed in – or indeed on – an aircraft.

In 2018, a teenager was arrested after stripping down to his underwear, climbing onto the wing of a passenger jet and banging on its windows as it sat on an airport taxiway.

Police said Jhryin Jones, 19, sprinted shirtless towards the plane after allegedly scaling a fence to gain access to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

He then jumped onto the wing of a recently landed Delta Air Lines flight from Miami and pounded on windows as passengers inside watched on, reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.