A 57-year-old Russian national surprised authorities last week by boarding a Delta flight from New York to France without a passport or boarding pass, according to multiple outlets.
The suspect, identified as Svetlana Dali, appeared in Brooklyn federal court on Friday and is facing one count of being a stowaway on a vessel or aircraft without consent, according to CNN. Dali reportedly exploited a security weakness at New York’s Kennedy International Airport on Nov. 26, slipping past airline employees who did not ask for her boarding pass on a fully booked flight, according to The New York Times. (RELATED: Plane With Nearly 80 Passengers On Board Slides Off Icy Runway Before Takeoff)
“This was a lot of failures in one day,” former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation Mary Schiavo told the outlet. “The system is lucky that she wasn’t apparently intending to do harm to the plane or the passengers.”
A Delta Air Lines Boeing 767 taxis at Los Angeles International Airport. (Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images)
By Wednesday, the 57-year-old had safely returned to the U.S. after being caught and deported. She was promptly arrested by the FBI, CNN reported.
During the seven-hour flight to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, Dali allegedly avoided the plane’s crew by hiding in the bathrooms, The New York Times reported. In a criminal complaint filed with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Dali said “that she did not have a plane ticket and that she intentionally evaded TSA security officials and Delta employees so that she could travel without buying one.”
Prosecutors at Dali’s hearing on Thursday argued to the judge that the 57-year-old was a “flight risk,” disagreeing with the suspect’s attorney that she was not a “Serious risk” but instead a security breach who had raised national security and safety concerns, CNN reported.
Judge Joseph Marutollo ruled Friday that Dali would not have to pay bail; however, she will be prohibited from going to airports, must submit to GPS monitoring, surrender her travel documents and abide by a curfew. The 57-year-old currently faces a potential maximum prison sentence of five years if found guilty.
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