The woman who was able to sneak onto a New York-to-Paris flight without a boarding pass late last year was able to get on the plane by glomming onto a group of ticketed passengers as they passed gate agents, new surveillance video shows.
The video, provided by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to The Associated Press on Wednesday after a records request, shows Svetlana Dali slipping by two gate agents who were checking boarding passes and strolling onto an airbridge along with a group of other passengers.
Dali has pleaded not guilty to a stowaway charge over the incident last November. Her trial is set to begin next month, but prosecutors and her lawyer have said they are trying to work toward a plea deal. Her attorney did not return a voicemail seeking comment on Wednesday.
According to court documents, Dali had initially been turned away from a security checkpoint at JFK International Airport by a Transportation Security Administration official after she was unable to show a boarding pass.
Dali, a 57-year-old Russian citizen with U.S. residency, then sneaked into a special security lane for airline employees, masked by a large Air Europa flight crew, and made it into a screening area where agents were inspecting bags and patting down travelers. A second video provided to AP by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey shows Dali going through screening and getting patted down.
From there, Dali walked onto a Delta Air Lines flight bound for Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. The surveillance video shows Dali at the gate — with a gray hood covering her head, carrying what appears to be a bag draped over her left arm and an oversized backpack slung over her shoulders — joining a group of boarding passengers and slipping past two Delta staffers who were checking tickets.
The staffers did not appear to notice Dali as she passed and joined a group of ticketed passengers who were allowed to board the plane.
Delta crew members realized Dali was an unauthorized passenger while the plane was in the air and notified French authorities, who detained her before she entered customs, according to court documents.
She was eventually flown back to New York and admitted to authorities that she got on the plane without a ticket and that she intentionally evaded security and Delta employees so she could avoid buying a ticket, court records said.
Dali was initially released after her arrest with electric monitoring but then was arrested again in Buffalo, New York, after she cut off the monitor and tried to enter Canada.
She is being held in a federal lockup in Brooklyn, records show.
