Prosecutors described Dali’s complex approach for penetrating airport security at Kennedy International Airport during peak traffic season.
NEW YORK- Svetlana Dali, a 57-year-old US permanent resident, was detained on Monday (December 16, 2024) after attempting to exit the nation via bus to Canada. She had previously taken an undocumented Delta Air Lines (DL) aircraft from New York (JFK) to Paris (CDG).
Dali, who came from Russia, was released on an ankle monitor during a federal court hearing in Brooklyn on December 5th, following her initial stowing away incident on a Delta Air Lines trip.
Woman Stowaway on Delta Flight, 2nd Act
Court-ordered terms forced her to stay at a friend’s Philadelphia residence, which she violated by taking off her tracking device.
According to law enforcement officials, Dali intentionally removed her ankle monitor and proceeded to upstate New York, where she boarded a bus bound for the Canadian border.
Unlike her last unlawful flight to Paris, where she flew without a boarding card or passport, this bus trip required a bought ticket, according to the New York Times.
According to Barbara Burns, a spokesman for the United States Attorney’s Office in the Western District of New York, authorities in Buffalo have arrested Svetlana Dali after her second unauthorized travel attempt.
Dali is set to appear before Magistrate Judge Michael J. Roemer on Tuesday afternoon before being returned to Brooklyn custody.
Prosecutors described Dali’s complex strategy of bypassing airport security at JFK International Airport during peak travel times.
She took advantage of security flaws by intentionally blending in with a Spanish airline flight crew, successfully skipping checkpoints and boarding an overbooked Delta flight to Paris without detection.
Throughout the seven-hour transatlantic journey, Dali tried to avoid detection by regularly hiding in the aircraft’s toilets.
French police detained her for about a week until Delta transported her to New York Airport, where FBI agents captured her.
During Ms. Dali’s first court appearance in Brooklyn this month, Brooke Theodora, an assistant US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, remarked,
Our concern is the risk of flight, rather than the nature of the offense.”
Serious Breach
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has announced an independent examination of the November 26 stowaway incident.
Delta Air Lines performed an internal assessment and determined that the security system was fundamentally solid.
The airline blamed the incident on a divergence from conventional security procedures, underlining that such breaches are the consequence of individual procedural failings rather than systematic failures.
