Stowaway incidents have increased in recent years.
During Thanksgiving week, a stowaway boarded a flight from JFK to Paris in what can be considered a serious breach of security. U.S. resident Svetlana Dali was one of the millions who flew over the busy travel week–but she did so without a ticket. Another stowaway incident has raised alarms about security lapses at airports and how people keep getting through robust checks.
How Did It Happen?
Airports are some of the safest public spaces in the U.S. Post 9/11, airports have heightened security measures with TSA agents, law enforcement, and air marshals. A passenger is screened at multiple checkpoints, not just by TSA but also by airline gate agents who check boarding passes and passports before letting someone on a flight. The airline also maintains a list of all passengers flying. Dali slipped through the cracks on all fronts.
Dali passed through security checks at the airport without getting her boarding pass or passport checked. CNN detailed that she first queued up at the line reserved for crewmembers and bypassed a facial recognition ID scanner, then passed through a standard TSA security check. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said in a statement, “TSA can confirm that an individual without a boarding pass was physically screened without any prohibited items. The individual bypassed two identity verification and boarding status stations and boarded the aircraft.” Her bag was screened, too, and it had two bottles of water.
Continue Reading Article After Our Video
Recommended Fodor’s Video
At the gate, she squeezed herself between a group of people and slipped past again without getting her ID and boarding pass checked. The airline hasn’t explained how she was able to evade gate agents, but they are investigating how this happened.
According to passengers, she shuffled between flight lavatories to go undetected. She sneaked into one after boarding and never occupied a seat. But just before landing, a flight attendant asked for her boarding pass and that’s when the crew realized she was a stowaway.
After the plane landed in France, the captain asked passengers to remain seated as law enforcement took care of the situation with the “extra passenger”. She was arrested for not having valid permission to enter the country—as a Russian national, she requires a visa. The story doesn’t end here—on a flight back to the U.S., she screamed that she did not want to go back and was removed from the flight. Once she arrives in the U.S., she will face civil charges and the TSA can refer her to the Justice Department for criminal charges.
Stowaway Stories
Dali is not the only one who has been able to sneak past security. In recent years, security gaps at airports have become a cause of concern. As per a report by the Washington Post, hundreds of people bypassed airport security in the last year and the trend has given the TSA a pause. A majority don’t pose a security threat; some just lose patience and skip checks, while others do it by accident. But it is still a security breach that reveals gaps.
Just in March, a 26-year-old was able to fly without a ticket after clicking pictures of boarding passes of other passengers. He was arrested when the plane was taxiing after a flight attendant noticed there were no empty seats for the passenger. In December last year, a man flew from London to New York without a ticket or passport by tailgating other passengers. Another passenger landed in LA from Copenhagen last year without a ticket or passport and was arrested by U.S. officials.
There’s also the famous serial stowaway who baffled the authorities not so long ago. Marilyn Hartman, who is in her 70s, evaded security checks for almost two decades and flew domestic and international routes without a plane ticket for years. In an interview with CBS, she said that she had taken at least 30 commercial flights without a ticket; her first one was to Copenhagen. She was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison after she pled guilty in 2022. She kept slipping past TSA security and gate agents, hiding in rooms, and changing tracks, which baffled aviation experts because she made it seem easy to sneak around U.S. airports without a ticket.
Incidents are still very few compared to millions who travel and investment in electronic gates can prevent slip-ups, TSA says. Busy travel seasons also contribute to errors and chaos, so former Department of Homeland Security official Keith Jeffries told CNN that the public can also be a layer of security. Like Homeland Security says, “If you see something, say something.”
