Fearless flyer tears across tarmac to catch Madrid flight

BRILLIANT footage captured and uploaded by stunned staff at Madrid-Barajas airport shows a daring passenger pulling out all the stops to catch his flight. 

The anonymous man was filmed leaping from an airport bridge like a latter day Indiana Jones, frantically trying to hijack a small white luggage lorry, before giving up and going for broke with a clumsy sprint across the runway, bags flailing. 

Incredibly he actually manages to board the Ryanair flight to Gran Canaria despite it being in the final stages of preparation. Even more incredibly he wasn’t immediately cut down by a hail of bullets. 

“This passenger had a boarding card and went through security but he seemingly got waylaid in the terminal and the gate was closed before he reached it,” said an airport spokesman.

“He pushed through a fire escape door into the air bridge, jumped down and then chased the plane. The alarm was immediately raised and the Civil Guard alerted but by then he had boarded the plane and was on his way.”

“It is extraordinary behaviour and that he was allowed to board the plane is very surprising, but that is what happened,” 

The incident took place on Monday August 8 and the Guardia Civil in Gran Canaria have confirmed they know who the passenger, a foreign national, is, but are happy to let him enjoy the fruits of his audacity pending a full investigation. 

A few aeons ago, when a man could drive straight up to his flight, berate the stewardess for finer whisky and smoke onboard, his antics would hardly be deemed newsworthy, but in this age of terror, and safety regulations biblical in their scope, it’s quite a remarkable feat. 

Had he pulled the same stunt in JFK or Heathrow we’d surely be reading about trigger-happy anti-terrorism police and a very dead tourist.