Man Who Spent 18 Years Living In An Airport Died There

How much time do you typically hang around at the airport?

Generally, they tell you to show up between two and three hours before your flight, so it's not a huge chunk of time.

But imagine spending 18 years living in an airport terminal!

That's exactly what happened to one man, who even died there.

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Mehran Karimi Nasseri is believed to have been born in 1945 in Israel, and his later years are what really caught the public's eye.

In 1988, Nasseri arrived in France but didn't have the necessary documents to settle there.

He couldn't go back to Israel either because he had been expelled from the country and didn't have a passport.

This situation led him to seek asylum in Europe, but things didn't go smoothly.

His quest for asylum didn't turn out as he had hoped, which resulted in him spending an extended period at a French airport.

Mehran Karimi Nasseri spent 18 years in the airport. Eric Fougere/VIP Images/Corbis via Getty Images

He was granted permission to apply for refuge in Belgium, but he claimed that his luggage with all his official documents was stolen at a train station in Paris.

When French police arrested him, they found they couldn't deport him since he had no official papers.

This is how he ended up living at Charles de Gaulle Airport starting in August 1988.

For the next 18 years, Nasseri would become a constant presence in Terminal 1 of the airport, stuck in a bureaucratic nightmare.

Even after his asylum paperwork was finally approved in 1999, he felt uneasy about leaving and reportedly refused to sign the documents, choosing instead to remain in the airport for several more years.

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He made a makeshift home on a red plastic bench inside the airport and befriended many of the terminal's staff.

They affectionately nicknamed him 'Lord Alfred,' and he became a well-known figure to travelers passing through.

Nasseri chose to continue living in Charles de Gaulle Airport, calling it his home until he was taken to a hospital in 2006, and his usual sleeping spot was removed.

After leaving the airport, Nasseri stayed in a shelter in Paris.

However, airport staff noted that in the weeks leading up to his death, he had begun to return to the airport to live.

The man died at the airport. Eric Fougere/VIP Images/Corbis via Getty Images

In November 2022, Nasseri died from a heart attack in Terminal 2F of the airport on the 12th of November.

Despite efforts, a medical team could not revive him.

His extraordinary life story loosely inspired the 2004 film "The Terminal," featuring Tom Hanks.

Hanks' character, stuck in JFK Airport and from a fictional Eastern European country, mirrored Nasseri's real-life ordeal of being trapped in political limbo and living in an airport terminal.