A Russian citizen previously convicted of stowing away on a transatlantic flight allegedly did it again, sneaking aboard a United Airlines plane from Newark to Milan without a ticket on Wednesday, according to multiple reports. Svetlana Dali, who is in her late 50s and holds U.S. permanent residency, was detained by law enforcement at Milan’s Malpensa Airport on Thursday after airline staff discovered her aboard the more than seven-hour flight, CNN reported.
Dali allegedly bypassed airline employees at Gate C74 at Newark Liberty International Airport and boarded United Flight 19, a Boeing 777-200 that seats 364 passengers. The flight departed Newark at approximately 5:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, according to multiple sources. CNN, citing FlightAware, reported the departure time as 5:51 p.m. ET. and landed in Milan at 7:09 a.m. Thursday local time. During the flight, crew members grew suspicious of Dali, but she reportedly pretended she could not hear questions from flight attendants about whether she had a ticket, according to a source cited by NBC New York.
After the plane touched down in Italy, Dali asked for asylum before Italian authorities were alerted about her extensive history with law enforcement, according to the same source. She was subsequently taken into custody.
The incident marks at least the second time Dali has allegedly managed to board an international flight without a ticket. In November 2024, she slipped past Delta Air Lines staff at John F. Kennedy International Airport and flew to Paris on a Thanksgiving Eve flight. Surveillance video from that incident showed Dali blending in with a group of ticketed passengers to walk past airline employees unnoticed, according to the Associated Press.
During that JFK flight, Dali hid in the airplane bathroom for several hours until being discovered as the plane neared Paris. When a flight attendant finally noticed her, she faked vomiting to explain her lengthy time in the lavatory, according to prosecutors cited by ABC News.
A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Dali on a stowaway charge in May 2025 for the Paris incident. She was sentenced in July 2025 to time served and one year of supervised release, and was ordered to pay a $100 fee. Her federal public defense attorney, Michael K. Schneider, declined to comment Thursday.
However, the JFK flight was far from Dali’s first brush with airport security. Two days before that November 2024 stowaway incident, she accessed a secure area of the departures terminal at Bradley International Airport near Hartford, Connecticut, but was caught before boarding a plane. Months earlier, in February 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents found her hiding in a bathroom in a secure area at Miami International Airport. Dali claimed she had arrived on an Air France flight, but a government memo stated there was no record of her being on a flight that day or of her departing the U.S. in the previous five years, Fox News reported, citing prosecutors.
The pattern of behavior raises serious questions about airport security protocols. In December 2024, Dali cut off an electronic ankle monitor and boarded a Greyhound bus bound for Canada, according to CNN. She had also appealed her conviction, and as of this week the appellate case was pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, with the government expected to respond by March 4, 2026.
Dali previously told the court, through a Russian interpreter, that she boarded the Paris flight because she believed she was being poisoned and that her actions were taken to save her life. She was living in Philadelphia at the time of the latest incident, according to NBC News.
FBI spokesperson Emily Molinari confirmed that the bureau’s Newark office was aware of the alleged stowaway and was working with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Transportation Security Administration on the open investigation. United Airlines said in a statement that safety and security are their highest priorities and that they are investigating the incident and working with appropriate authorities.
The case has drawn renewed scrutiny to how a person with a known history of breaching airport security — and a federal conviction for the very same offense — was able to once again slip past multiple layers of screening and board an international flight undetected. Neither the TSA nor the Port Authority have publicly commented on how the breach occurred.
