New York
Queens: Passenger Sneaks Monkey Aboard Plane
By SEWELL CHAN
Published: August 8, 2007
A man and his small spider monkey were detained yesterday after a flight crew alerted airport officials that they had a monkey aboard their aircraft en route to La Guardia Airport. The man boarded a Spirit Airlines flight on Monday night from Lima, Peru, to New York by way of South Florida, but did not report that he had a monkey with him, an airline spokeswoman said. It was only on the second leg of the flight, from Fort Lauderdale, that other passengers noticed the monkey. “It was clinging to his ponytail underneath his hat,” said Alison Russell, the airline’s spokeswoman. When the plane landed at 3:01 p.m. yesterday, the monkey was turned over to New York City Animal Care and Control, and the man, who was not named by airport officials, was turned over to federal officers for questioning, said Pasquale DiFulco, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs La Guardia Airport. “How the passenger got through security, I can’t begin to say,” Ms. Russell said.
