- To be invisible, you don’t really need to be invisible. Just extremely mundane.
If you’re good at something, keep at it. People with unique talents should cultivate their abilities.
That said, if your super skill is in something illegal, like sneaking on transatlantic flights without a ticket, you should maybe start looking for another hobby.
Svetlana Dali is in that situation. The woman seems to have an uncanny ability to stow away on planes, and she doesn’t hesitate to use it.
Dali first made headlines in 2024, when she managed to board a flight to Paris without a ticket. Nobody realized she wasn’t supposed to be on the plane until it was halfway across the Atlantic.
During her trial, her lawyers argued that she wouldn’t pose a flight risk. It’s not like she could just sneak onto another plane.
Then she snuck onto another plane.
Dali was recently caught on a plane to Milan, Italy. Unfortunately for her, law enforcement authorities were waiting for her on the runway when she landed.
Now, Dali is awaiting a new trial. But it’s not like she can hop on another plane to run away.
Right?
The 365th Passenger
On February 25, United Airlines flight 19 took off from the Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey at 5:51 p.m. The flight was served by a Boeing 777-200 jetliner, which seats 364 passengers in its modern “High-Density” configuration (at the cost of everyone’s comfort).
However, as the flight progressed, the crew noticed that there were 365 passengers.
One of them was Svetlana Dali. The Russian-born U.S. permanent resident had boarded the plane without a ticket.
It wasn’t immediately clear how Dali managed to slip past the ticketing agents and board the plane. United Airlines, the FBI, and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are all conducting an investigation into the incident, so they’re staying quiet about closer details.
Yet, whatever stunt she pulled, Dali got on the plane. However, something about her behavior caught the flight crew’s attention. Once they started referencing passenger counts and seat numbers, things didn’t add up.
According to NBC News, the crew asked Dali whether she had a ticket. She, however, pretended not to hear the questions.
So, the flight crew alerted the authorities at their final destination, as the flight was already crossing the Atlantic. Once the plane landed in Milan, Dali walked off the plane and into a police car.
‘Not a Serious Flight Risk’
It seems strange that Dali managed to sneak through airport security, but she obviously has a talent for it. She pulled the exact same stunt in November 2024.
That time, Dali tiptoed her way onto a Delta Airlines flight from the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York to Paris. Security footage from the airport shows how she pulled it off.
To bypass security, Dali joined a group of airline staff walking through the ID check station. She traipsed through the open gate, received a patdown, and went on her merry way without anyone ever asking for her papers.
Once she got to the gate, Dali stuck close to a family going through the ticketing booth. The trick worked, and she got past the agents without showing her ticket.
On the plane, Dali spent the majority of the flight in the plane’s lavatories to stay out of the flight crew’s sight. Eventually, however, the crew noticed the woman lurking in the toilets instead of her seat.
In Paris, she was arrested and sent back to the U.S. During her trial, her lawyer argued that she didn’t need to be jailed.
“We do not believe she is a serious risk of flight. It’s not as if she can sneak on a flight every day,” said federal public defense attorney Michael Schneider.
And in Schneider’s defense, she didn’t. Instead, as soon as she was released from jail, Dali cut off her ankle monitor and boarded a Greyhound bus to Canada.
She got arrested again and remained in jail until her conviction seven months later, where she was sentenced to time served.
On top of all this, before getting on the Paris flight, Dali got kicked out of airports in Connecticut and Florida for lurking in secured areas without a ticket.
Invisible Woman
But why and how is Dali constantly boarding planes without a ticket? Where is she trying to go?
Well, that’s not entirely clear. Dali herself believes her life is in danger.
According to Dali, she is convinced that someone is attempting to poison her. At her trial, she said through a Russian translator that all of her actions “were taken in order to save my life.”
As to how she keeps doing it, Dali likely falls into something of a blind spot when it comes to airport security. It’s no secret that airport security keeps an eye out for suspicious individuals, but their profiling is focused on everything Dali is not.
She is a short, late-middle-aged Caucasian woman. She doesn’t wear fancy clothes during her illicit trips. In essence, she perfectly blends into the crowd to the point that virtually invisible to security.
And that’s how she keeps getting on the planes.