Revealed: How alleged stowaway got past TSA agents at JFK to board New York to Paris flight
Svetlana Dali, who is due to go on trial next month, has pleaded not guilty to a stowaway charge following the incident at John F. Kennedy Airport
Newly-emerged surveillance footage appears to show how an alleged stowaway managed to slip past security at John F. Kennedy Airport and board a flight to France.
Svetlana Dali snuck past Transportation Security Administration agents to board Delta Flight 264 bound for Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport without a ticket on November 26 last year, prosecutors say.
Dali, currently held in a federal jail in Brooklyn, pleaded not guilty to a stowaway charge over the incident with her trial set to begin on May 19.
Video from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey shows the moment Dali proceeded through a security screening checkpoint and TSA pat-down before making her way through the terminal onto the plane.
Dali, a Russian citizen who held a U.S. green card, could be seen holding her arms above her head in a scanner sporting a tan shirt over a gray hoodie and a pair of blue jeans.
The woman was then recorded being briefly frisked by security with her outstretched arms parallel to her side.
In another video, Dali, now donning a black jacket and green backpack, had pulled her hoodie over her head as she blended in to a group of five passengers who were being checked onto an airbridge.
The footage shows her passing two Delta gate agents who were checking tickets, seemingly unnoticed.
After managing to board the plane, the woman allegedly evaded detection during takeoff by hiding inside one of the lavatories.
Delta crew members eventually realized Dali was an unauthorized passenger towards the end of the seven-hour flight and notified French authorities, according to court documents. The woman was detained before she entered customs.
Dali had allegedly been turned away at one security checkpoint by a TSA official earlier in the day for not having a boarding pass, per the filings.
She was eventually flown back to New York—after allegedly being kicked off a flight for a disruptive outburst—and admitted to authorities that she intentionally evaded Delta staff and got on the plane without permission, prosecutors said.
Dali was released after her arrest with electronic GPS monitoring before being rearrested in Buffalo, New York, on December 16 after authorities said she cut off the monitor and attempted to enter Canada on a Greyhound bus.