Overview
- Authorities say 32-year-old Samuel Prescott Lackey climbed an eight-foot fence topped with barbed wire to reach a remote JetScape maintenance hangar at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
- Surveillance video reviewed by deputies shows a man matching Lackey’s description near the facility late Saturday and investigators say he used portable maintenance stairs and an open rear door to board the JetBlue Airbus A320.
- JetBlue Move Team employees found Lackey asleep in the aircraft’s aft lavatory during a routine interior inspection before the plane was moved early Sunday morning on Aug. 2, and the discovery prevented the aircraft from entering service as scheduled.
- Lackey was arrested, charged with burglary of an occupied conveyance, criminal mischief and interruption or impairment of critical infrastructure, and is being held on $10,000 bail while the Broward County Aviation Department cooperates with federal investigators.
- JetBlue estimated the immediate operational disruption at about $2,400 and officials say the case has raised questions about maintenance-area access controls and perimeter monitoring that federal investigators will now examine.