Life imitates art: "A man who lived at a Chicago airport for 3 months before being discovered ..."

[MissMillie]

"Aditya Singh arrived at O'Hare from Los Angeles on October 19, and lived in the airport's security zone undetected until Saturday, when two United Airlines employees approached him and asked for identification, according to prosecutors, NBC Chicago reported.

Singh showed them a badge he had been wearing that actually belonged to an operations manager who reported it missing in October, prompting the employees to call 911.

Singh was charged this weekend with felony criminal trespass to a restricted area of an airport and misdemeanor theft."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/a-man-who-lived-at-a-chicago-airport-for-3-months-before-being-discovered-said-he-was-too-scared-to-fly-because-of-covid-19-prosecutors-say/ar-BB1cQzye?li=BBnb7Kz


The Terminal is one of my favorite Tom Hanks movies.

[xxqqqzme]

1. I liked that

movie as well.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. That's one of the last movies I ever saw in a theater!

I agree, he was very good. Though it's tough to believe someone could manage this with today's security!

[Buckeyeblue]

3. I've often thought someone could exist in an airport for weeks if not months

Especially O'Hare. The problem is it would be expensive.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. I wonder about things like clean clothing.

After a while he's going to be a bit ripe, and his clothes will be a lot less than fresh.

[MissMillie]

5. Nothing to indicate that this guy couldn't leave the airport

and seek out a laundromat.

(Of course, in The Terminal, Victor Navorski couldn't do that.)

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. If he did that, then why would he return?

There's a lot missing from that story.

[MissMillie]

9. dunno

cheaper than a hotel?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

12. That would be true.

But where would he sleep? I find it hard to believe that no employee ever noticed this guy in those three months.

I was an airline ticket agent at DCA for ten years (1969-1979) starting before any security measures whatsoever, and we were very apt to pay attention to people who weren't where they should be.

[greenjar_01]

10. Kind of a hike to a laundromat from O'Hare

[NurseJackie]

13. Admiral's Club lounge? USO Lounge? Employee locker room/showers?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

14. To get into any of those lounges, you need

the right kind of ID and membership card. And I'm not sure any of those have showers.

If there are employee showers at ORD (and we didn't have them at DCA) you'd again need to be an employee with your employee ID. Also, if someone showed up pretending to be an employee that no one recognized . . . there would be questions asked and references to authority. Even fifty years ago that would have been the case.

[NurseJackie]

16. The Admiral's Club offers one-day passes.

... but I'm not sure if you need a valid travel ticket or boarding pass.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

17. Yep, you must have a boarding pass and also cough up $59.00

Airlines and airline employees have been extremely security conscious for a very long time now, which is why this story strikes me as so bizarre.

[lindysalsagal]

7. Tells you they need to beef us security. That's inexcusable.

[Roland99]

8. My daughter just watched The Terminal recently

Good film

[brooklynite]

11. "The Terminal" was based on another actual person.....

Mehran Karimi Nasseri; born 1946), also known as Sir Alfred Mehran,[1] is an Iranian refugee who lived in the departure lounge of Terminal One in Charles de Gaulle Airport from 26 August 1988 until July 2006, when he was hospitalized. His autobiography was published as a book, The Terminal Man, in 2004.—Wikipedia

FWIW — “The Terminal” had a flawed premise, because US Airports don’t have an international transit zone that a person could stay in.

[Wounded Bear]

15. IIRC, The Terminal posited he lived in a construction zone...

playing off of the "gov't can do anything right" meme that the airport was perennially under some kind of construction, so he could hide out there for months at a time.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. And in reality, no airport in this country would be permanently under some kind of construction.

Not to mention, such a construction zone would probably be swept each night by the airport cops, and someone hanging out like that would be very quickly found.

[brooklynite]

19. No, he was in a departure lounge for the most part.