Man in underpants runs onto Atlanta tarmac, pounds on plane windows - police

A man scaled a fence at Atlanta’s airport on Tuesday, jumped onto the wing of a stationary airliner and pounded on the plane’s windows before being arrested, police said.

Videos posted online by passengers inside the airliner showed a barefooted man dressed only in his underpants apparently talking to himself and walking near the plane.

The pilot could be heard on one of the videos telling passengers the man had left the plane and was trying to get back onboard. The pilot later said the man had not been a passenger.

“He approached an aircraft, jumped on the wing and began to pound on the windows. Five minutes later, he was taken into custody without incident,” Stephanie Brown, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta Police Department, said in a statement.

The man was identified as Jhryin Jones, 19, who was charged with criminal trespassing, public indecency and obstruction of law enforcement officers, Brown said.

WXIA-TV, an NBC affiliate in Atlanta, cited a passenger as saying the man approached a Delta airliner that had arrived from Miami. The station said passengers held an emergency door shut to keep the man from getting inside the plane.

Officials of the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the world’s busiest, said on Twitter that the incident had no impact on airport operations.

Calls and emails to airport officials on Tuesday evening were not immediately returned.

Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Editing by Darren Schuettler