A man is being held by police after attempting to impersonate a pilot at Delhi airport in India.
The unnamed passenger tried to board an AirAsia flight for free by pretending to be a Lufthansa pilot.
However, he was apprehended before he could get on the I5-579 service to Kolkata, reports The Times of India.
India’s Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) discovered the impostor after AirAsia called the Lufthansa team to confirm the man’s identity.
Wearing a Lufthansa uniform, with a fake ID card he’d reportedly obtained in Bangkok, the man claimed to have successfully made the journey between Delhi and Kolkata numerous times in the last six months using the same subterfuge.
AirAsia’s chief of safety told The Independent: “AirAsia India confirms that a case of false identity was detected and informed to the CISF. The individual in question was impersonating as an employee of Lufthansa airlines.
“He was handed over to the airport police and an investigation has been ordered.
“We would like to emphasise that we stand by all security policies and till the time the investigation is completed we would be unable to provide specific details with regards to the same.”
“We handed him over to Delhi Police for further action,” the CISF told The Times of India.
A Lufthansa spokesperson told The Independent they are “supporting” the authorities in their investigation.
It follows an off-duty pilot being forced to step up and make an emergency landing on a flight after the original pilot fell ill.
Jet2 flight LS765 was on its way from Manchester to Madeira in August when the incident occurred.
According to passenger Nicholas Banks, an announcement came over the tannoy that there had been “an incident on the flight deck”.
“Another Jet2 pilot who happened to be on holiday came forward from the back of the plane,” he said.
The Boeing 757 aircraft had to perform an emergency landing at Porto airport in northwest Portugal.
