Veteran airline stowaway strikes again, this time on a Newark-to-Milan flight
A repeat illegal offender was arrested Wednesday aboard a Newark-Milan flight, sources familiar with the matter said, more than a year after she committed a similar stunt on a New York-Paris plane.
Svetlana Dali was arrested in Italy after allegedly boarding United Flight 19 from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, which took off Wednesday around 5:30 p.m. ET.
Dali managed to get past the ticket agents, and when the crew aboard United realized she was on board without a ticket, the Boeing 777-200 was already over the Atlantic Ocean, sources said.
In May, a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Dali, a Russian citizen residing in the United States, of a stowaway charge stemming from her unauthorized trip with Delta Air Lines from New York to Paris on November 26, 2024.
She was sentenced to prison for this unauthorized French trip.
Two days before flying to Paris, Dali slipped through security at Bradley International Airport near Hartford, Conn., but was arrested before she could board a plane, officials said.
And earlier that year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents discovered Dali hiding in a toilet in a secure area of Miami International Airport, officials said.
A former lawyer for Dali and representatives from the FBI, TSA and United could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.
