Delta discovers another stowaway attempt before Christmas Eve flight (original) (raw)

A traveler at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was arrested for trespassing on Christmas Eve after authorities said the woman boarded a Delta Air Lines flight to Honolulu without a ticket.

The airline said the unidentified passenger was discovered on Delta Flight 487 as the plane taxied out, prompting the pilots to return to the gate so the woman could be removed. The airline said in a statement that an investigation is ongoing, but preliminary information is that the traveler was able to get on the flight without showing a boarding pass.

The Transportation Security Administration said in a statement that the passenger avoided identity verification and boarding status stations. But the person went through standard screening and was not found with any prohibited items, the TSA said.

“TSA takes any incidents that occur at any of our checkpoints nationwide seriously,” the statement said. “TSA will independently review the circumstances of this incident at our travel document checker station at Seattle/Tacoma International.”

The breach happened less than a month after a stowaway flew to Paris from New York City on a Delta flight. That passenger, a 57-year-old Russian national named Svetlana Dali, also got on a plane without a boarding pass and bypassed identity verification and boarding status stations. Dali was removed by authorities in France and flown back to New York.

Dali was released while awaiting trial but arrested again this month in Buffalo. According to court documents, she has a bail violation hearing set for Monday.

In the most recent incident, the female passenger went through a security checkpoint the night of Dec. 23 before boarding the Christmas Eve flight. Her activities in the meantime have not been disclosed, but airport spokesman Perry Cooper said in an email that video surveillance had “tracked her movements throughout the terminal as part of the investigation.”

Port of Seattle Police were sent to the gate to respond to a reported “suspicious circumstance” a little after 1 p.m. Tuesday, according to a statement released by Cooper. The statement said that the woman left the plane.

“With the help of video surveillance, [police] were able to locate the subject in a terminal restroom,” the statement said. “The subject was arrested for criminal trespass” and booked into jail. It wasn’t clear why she was taken into custody in the restroom and not on the plane or at the gate.

Asked Friday whether the airline was looking to change any procedures, Delta said that its “security infrastructure, as part of our Safety Management System framework, is sound.”

After Tuesday’s incident, TSA had to take additional security measures; passengers had to leave the plane and be escorted to security checkpoints for a new screening, authorities said. Port of Seattle Police said the plane and all areas the woman accessed in the terminal were swept by dogs.

The flight was delayed two hours and 15 minutes.

“As there are no matters more important than safety and security, Delta people followed procedures to have an unticketed passenger removed from the flight and then apprehended,” the airline said in a statement. “We apologize to our customers for the delay in their travels and thank them for their patience and cooperation.”