A woman who allegedly hid on a New York-Paris flight faces prison time

NEW YORK – A Russian woman arrested after she hid on a flight from New York to Paris was indicted Monday by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn.

Svetlana Dali (57) was charged with free riding, for which she faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

She was arrested in early December after returning to the United States a week after she was found aboard a Delta Air Lines flight on Nov. 26 from JFK International Airport in New York to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.

After returning to the United States, she was arrested again on Dec. 16 in Buffalo after authorities said she tried to enter Canada after cutting off a GPS monitoring device that was worn in New York when she was released on bail. He has been held in a federal detention center in Brooklyn since his second arrest.

Her court-appointed lawyer declined to comment on the case Monday.

Dali’s detention was one of several recent security breaches at airports across the country. Last month, on various occasions, the bodies of people hiding in the wheel wells of planes were found. Dali was one of two stowaways arrested on separate flights in November and December. Additionally, last week, a passenger opened the emergency door while the plane was taxiing in Boston.

Experts say a shortage of air traffic controllers, outdated aircraft tracking technology and other problems are worsening the safety margin in air travel. But some experts also note that more than 3 million people reach their destinations safely every day, and the last fatal commercial plane crash in the United States occurred in 2009.