With all the surveillance and TSA agents packed into airports these days, how is it possible that a Russian woman sneaked onto a flight from New York to Paris late last year?
Now you can see for yourself, with newly released video that shows what looks like magic as 57-year-old Svetlana Dali blends into a group of passengers boarding a plane at JFK International Airport and slipping right past the gate agents. It's as if she's wearing an invisibility cloak. (See footage below, first released to AP, posted by WGRZ-TV.)
And before her disappearing act, we also see her brazenly walking through an x-ray scanner and getting the typical pat-down by a TSA agent — it's not clear how in the world she managed to get all the way over to the screeners without a ticket, but I have a hunch that inconspicuous beige sweater had something to do with it.
NBC News gives more details on how she actually maneuvered her way past the screeners:
Dali has pleaded not guilty to a stowaway charge over the incident last November. Her trial is set to begin next month…
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.
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.
Previously: "Stowaway" flies from Denmark to LAX in plain sight (but no ticket)
