Apparently eating passports is a thing on flights.

[hardcorestitch]

A Ryanair flight was diverted to a French airport after several passengers ate passports or flushed passports in the lavatory. Weirdest and most disgusting diversion ever.

https://nypost.com/2025/09/29/lifes...trange-passengers-try-to-eat-flush-passports/

 

[LuvOrlando]

How on earth does this benefit a person? Were they hoping to lose ID in order to create a new identity or something when they got to the destination? Was there identity theft and they bribed someone to get waved on but knew they's get discovered when they landed? There has got to be a reason that made sense to them in that moment

 

[snappy]

Hopefully the French authorities will get to the bottom of it. I would have been freaked out if I had been on that flight.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Maybe there are benefits in Europe by saying you're "undocumented".

We just returned Sunday from a 13-nt trip visiting England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and France. We had conversations with many private tour guides and a taxi driver who had a LOT to say about their country's immigration policy. Let's just say they were not happy about it.

 

[china mom]

I am missing something in tis story. How did they know the second passenger was trying to flush his passport if the bathroom door was closed? And we know it was closed because the FA was "banging on the door"

 

[bcla]

I am missing something in tis story. How did they know the second passenger was trying to flush his passport if the bathroom door was closed? And we know it was closed because the FA was "banging on the door"

They might not have know if at the time, but I'd think they would know after they managed to get the lav door open and looked at what was in the toilet.

Here's video of one of the guys being arrested in France. Sounds very much English, as this was scheduled as a flight to London.

https://viewfromthewing.com/plane-diverts-to-paris-after-passengers-eat-and-flush-their-passports/

 

[NotUrsula]

How on earth does this benefit a person? Were they hoping to lose ID in order to create a new identity or something when they got to the destination? Was there identity theft and they bribed someone to get waved on but knew they's get discovered when they landed? There has got to be a reason that made sense to them in that moment

It's the most physically comfortable way to seek asylum; you need a passport to board an international flight, but then when you arrive without a passport, you can claim asylum-seeker status and the authorities of the country where you landed have no normal way to deport you back to your home country, because you won't be re-admitted without a passport. Either you stay in that airport's international arrivals area forever, stateless, or they let you apply for asylum.

Sometimes the passports are fake, provided by traffickers, who advise the people traveling that they should do this before arrival. I think it turned into a frenzy in this case because the flight arrival time was suddenly moved up because the flight was diverted, so they had a lot less time to dispose of the passports. (Presumably they did not know that when an international flight is diverted to a country other than the original destination, passengers do not usually process through immigration or customs; they are normally held on the plane to wait for weather to clear, or placed in an airside holding area to wait for a replacement aircraft, and sent back on their way. This is because of visa requirements to actually enter the second country. If for some reason they have to stay overnight, the airline usually arranges with Immigration to issue a special temporary transit-entry permit, and they take them by bus to a designated hotel. Skip out from there and you're a fugitive.)

 

[Brian rhymes with dyin]

Maybe there are benefits in Europe by saying you're "undocumented".

We just returned Sunday from a 13-nt trip visiting England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and France. We had conversations with many private tour guides and a taxi driver who had a LOT to say about their country's immigration policy. Let's just say they were not happy about it.

 

[hardcorestitch]

Maybe there are benefits in Europe by saying you're "undocumented".

We just returned Sunday from a 13-nt trip visiting England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and France. We had conversations with many private tour guides and a taxi driver who had a LOT to say about their country's immigration policy. Let's just say they were not happy about it.

That… along with the terrible and draconian, inhumane handling of people heading home in the US from international visits is why I will NOT do any non-essential international travel until 2029.

 

[Minnie1222]

I love how some people immediately jumped to "asylum" or "undocumented" from reading the title, whereas the video appeared to show a loony Briton with his combative tween son.

 

[hardcorestitch]

I love how some people immediately jumped to "asylum" or "undocumented" from reading the title, whereas the video appeared to show a loony Briton with his combative tween son.

Edible asylum…

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I love how some people immediately jumped to "asylum" or "undocumented" from reading the title, whereas the video appeared to show a loony Briton with his combative tween son.

Have you kept up on Europe over the last few years especially to understand why people would think that?

We were just in the UK and while we were in Wales we heard on the news the huge protests in London with more than 100,000 people doing so the overwhelming majority there protesting against immigration.

It isn't known their nationalities but you wouldn't want to assume strictly on accent someone's citizenship. I agree people wouldn't want to assume too much, there's far too much information missing whether it was a mental health issue or whether it was something else but there is good cause for the immigration to be brought forth in the discussion. You have to stop thinking about it from an American standpoint and how we are dealing with immigration and think about it from that region's issues that have been steadily getting more and more tension filled. Believe it or not we are not the only nation to be dealing with immigration policies and the public's opinion on it.

 

[NotUrsula]

I love how some people immediately jumped to "asylum" or "undocumented" from reading the title, whereas the video appeared to show a loony Briton with his combative tween son.

It's the natural conclusion to jump to in this particular scenario because asylum-seekers have been doing it for a while now. There really wouldn't be a common reason for someone returning to their home country to do it. (The only thing I can think of would be someone who had an outstanding arrest warrant in the country the flight was being diverted to, or at home.)

FWIW, I'm about as liberal as it's possible to be, and I have no issues with people seeking asylum for good cause. I do have problems with such people being taken advantage of by criminal traffickers, though.