Stowaway on New York-to-Paris flight ID’d as 57-year-old Russian woman

The woman who sneaked past security at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and stowed away on a flight to Paris last week has been identified.

She’s Svetlana Dali, 57, a Philadelphia resident in the U.S. on a green card, unnamed sources told CBS News. The French Ministry of the Interior identified her as a Russian national.

On Nov. 26, the woman boarded Delta Air Lines Flight 264 and flew to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, being discovered before landing.

Ms. Dali hasn’t been charged in France, where she was refused entry because she didn’t have a visa, the French National Police said, according to the BBC. Unnamed sources told the New York Post that she made an unsuccessful attempt to claim asylum in France.

Attempts to return Ms. Dali stateside haven’t worked out. On Saturday, she was supposed to fly back on another Delta flight, but she made enough of a ruckus to be removed before the flight took off.

“She kept on saying, ’I do not want to go back to the USA. Only a judge can make me go back to the USA.’ She also repeated the Geneva Convention a few times, so to me that kind of showed that she was off,” fellow passenger Gary Treichler, a Californian, told CNN.

On Tuesday, she again boarded a Delta plane that refused to fly her, Paris airport officials told CNN. They added that they will still try to send Ms. Dali back, this time with a French escort.

Ms. Dali could face criminal and civil charges once back in America. Unnamed law enforcement sources told the Post that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plans to levy a theft of service charge against her along with other possible charges.

The Transportation Security Administration, meanwhile, is planning to file a civil case against Ms Dali, according to CNN. The agency can refer criminal cases to the Justice Department but can’t prosecute them itself.

In getting on the flight from New York to Paris, Ms. Dali, who didn’t have a boarding pass, “was physically screened without any prohibited items. The individual bypassed two identity verification and boarding status stations and boarded the aircraft,” TSA officials told CBS News last week. She also made it past Delta staff at the gate.

While on the plane, Ms. Dali used multiple lavatories and was discovered only toward the end of the flight.