A recent spate of stowaways on airplanes has exposed lapses in aviation security and sparked concerns about safety, according to transportation experts, who are calling for more accountability and intense scrutiny of current airport regulatory agency and airline procedures.

While the problem of people sneaking aboard airplanes — either inside or outside of the passenger cabin — isn’t new, there have been at least four cases recently.

In the latest example, two bodies were discovered Jan. 6 in the landing gear of a JetBlue plane in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, that had taken off from Kennedy Airport.

The Transportation Security Administration said the investigation, which also involves the Federal Aviation Administration and airport, airline and local law enforcement officials, is continuing.

JetBlue didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Security experts said there are laws, guidelines and security procedures in place to prevent these types of incidents but the multiple recent cases highlight failures that need to be examined.

“It’s happening with greater frequency and it’s happening right here in the U.S.,” Mary Schiavo, who served as inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation from 1990 to 1996, said of stowaways.

The attorney and general aviation pilot said the air transportation system has “obvious and glaring safety and security issues” and it’s “time to enforce the regulations we already have” and hold those responsible “accountable for the failures.”

The FAA and the TSA oversee aviation safety and security, and airports and the airlines must comply with federal laws and regulations. The TSA also approves airport security plans.

Those who try to hitch a ride in a plane’s landing gear often die, according to the FAA. At high altitudes, there’s insufficient oxygen, frigid temperatures and the risk of getting crushed by the landing gear machinery, falling out or dying from aircraft engine heat.

An FAA spokesperson said in an email the agency doesn’t track stowaways. But the agency documented 89 stowaway cases on 79 flights in a 2011 report, finding only 18 of the 89 people who tried to fly in areas outside a plane’s cabin, not including the cargo area, survived. The report indicated the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute, which is part of the FAA, used media reports to identify stowaway cases and noted the first recorded case happened in 1929 on a plane three Frenchmen piloted.

The JetBlue stowaway case came less than 30 days after another body was found on Dec. 24, in a landing gear — also known as the wheel well — of a United Airlines plane that landed in Maui, Hawaii after taking off from Chicago, according to the airline. It’s still not clear how the person accessed the aircraft, a United spokesperson said in an email. 

“How someone can get access to the outside of the aircraft and crawl into the landing gear wheel well is beyond understanding. These are the fissure cracks that are allowing these incidents to happen,” said Dennis Tajer, a pilot and spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association union, which represents 16,000 American Airlines pilots.

 “As professional pilots we are not only on the airplane but most importantly charged with protecting our passengers, so we demand answers to our inquiries on these failures and must be a part of the TSA plan development to stop these lapses in security,” he added.  

Two other recent breaches involving stowaways took place inside airport terminals, also during the busy holiday travel season, according to authorities.

On Dec. 24, a woman without a ticket was found on a Delta Air Lines plane in Seattle on a flight bound for Honolulu, Hawaii and removed before takeoff, according to a police complaint. 

“As there are no matters more important than safety and security, Delta people followed procedures to have an unticketed passenger removed from the flight and then apprehended,” a company spokesperson said in an email.

In another case, authorities said on Nov. 26, an allegedly unticketed passenger, Svetlana Dali, 57, boarded a Delta Air Lines plane from Kennedy Airport headed to Paris. A federal grand jury indicted Dali on Monday on a charge of stowing away on an aircraft, according to court records.

John Marzulli, a spokesman for the Eastern District U.S. Attorney’s Office, said Monday she is facing up to five years in prison if convicted. He said he expected Dali to be arraigned on the indictment Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court, when she already is scheduled for a bail violation hearing after her Dec. 16 arrest in Buffalo for allegedly cutting off her GPS device — a condition of her release after her first arrest — and attempting to enter Canada.

Dali’s attorney didn’t return a request for comment Monday.

Dali managed to pass through the TSA security checkpoint without a boarding pass by entering a lane for airline employees, according to a criminal complaint. The allegations charge that later, busy Delta employees didn’t ask to see her boarding pass.

Law enforcement officials in Paris detained her after she was found during the flight and sent her back to New York to face a federal prosecution, according to court records.

Hassan Shahidi, CEO of Virginia-based nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation, said airlines and airports must review their security systems to determine how these breaches took place.

“If desperate individuals can exploit these vulnerabilities, it raises serious concerns about potential security risks posed by those with more malicious intent,” Shahidi said in an email.

Experts said the recent intrusions highlight two areas of concern, inside the airport building and outside in what’s known as the airport operations area, where planes take off, land, refuel and maintenance is performed.

The cases show security vulnerabilities because “it demonstrates that it’s still possible to get someone, which means you could get something, onto the aircraft,” said Brian Sullivan, a retired FAA special agent.

Sullivan and other experts said people sneaking on to planes expose breakdowns in TSA and airline protocols while the wheel well stowaways may point to FAA, airport and airline failures. 

Before takeoff, pilots and ground maintenance crew routinely complete a cursory visual inspection of the plane for safety issues and flag anything unusual, Sullivan and other experts said. The secure areas outside and inside airport buildings are monitored by cameras, said Schiavo.

Bogdan Dzakovic, a retired FAA “red team” leader, a role he held starting in 1995 doing covert security tests on airports, said his teams easily infiltrated security and he questions whether much has changed. 

 Records show Dzakovic testified in May 2003 before the 9/11 Commission that he and colleagues found “major vulnerabilities in aviation security” but the FAA “deliberately chose to ignore our warnings.” Weeks after 9/11, Dzakovic filed a whistleblower complaint about FAA security lapses, which the independent Office of Special Counsel upheld in March 2003, Newsday reported after his 2003 testimony.  

Dzakovic said there are three main access points that should be tightly monitored outside the airport: terminal doors that lead to the air operations area; the airfield’s exterior perimeter, commonly marked with a fence; and entry ways where employees and other people with authorization drive or walk onto the airfield. 

When it comes to slipping onto the tarmac, he said sometimes people without clearance may trail behind an authorized airport employee or try to steal their security code.  Dzakovic also said it’s important to monitor the property’s boundaries and “you cannot have breaks in the fences.” 

Robert Mann Jr., a former airline executive and president of Port Washington-based R.W. Mann & Co., an aviation consulting group, said “safety and security have to be paramount.”

As far as the Jan. 6 stowaway case involving Kennedy Airport, he said he hopes it’s a lesson learned about the need for better security.

“There are two possibilities there, one is something facilitated it, and the other possibility is something did not deter it. … Hopefully it results in no repeat of that circumstance,” Mann said. 

A recent spate of stowaways on airplanes has exposed lapses in aviation security and sparked concerns about safety, according to transportation experts, who are calling for more accountability and intense scrutiny of current airport regulatory agency and airline procedures.

While the problem of people sneaking aboard airplanes — either inside or outside of the passenger cabin — isn’t new, there have been at least four cases recently.

In the latest example, two bodies were discovered Jan. 6 in the landing gear of a JetBlue plane in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, that had taken off from Kennedy Airport.

The Transportation Security Administration said the investigation, which also involves the Federal Aviation Administration and airport, airline and local law enforcement officials, is continuing.

WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND

  • There have been at least four recent stowaway cases, including on Jan. 6, when two bodies were discovered in the landing gear of a JetBlue plane in Fort Lauderdale, Florida that had taken off from Kennedy Airport.
  • Transportation experts are calling for more accountability and intense scrutiny of current airport regulatory agency and airline procedures.
  • A Brooklyn federal grand jury on Monday indicted a 57-year-old woman who on Nov. 26 allegedly stowed away on a Delta Air Lines plane from Kennedy Airport to Paris. Prosecutors said she is facing up to five years in prison if convicted.

JetBlue didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Security experts said there are laws, guidelines and security procedures in place to prevent these types of incidents but the multiple recent cases highlight failures that need to be examined.

“It’s happening with greater frequency and it’s happening right here in the U.S.,” Mary Schiavo, who served as inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation from 1990 to 1996, said of stowaways.

The attorney and general aviation pilot said the air transportation system has “obvious and glaring safety and security issues” and it’s “time to enforce the regulations we already have” and hold those responsible “accountable for the failures.”

The FAA and the TSA oversee aviation safety and security, and airports and the airlines must comply with federal laws and regulations. The TSA also approves airport security plans.

Those who try to hitch a ride in a plane’s landing gear often die, according to the FAA. At high altitudes, there’s insufficient oxygen, frigid temperatures and the risk of getting crushed by the landing gear machinery, falling out or dying from aircraft engine heat.

An FAA spokesperson said in an email the agency doesn’t track stowaways. But the agency documented 89 stowaway cases on 79 flights in a 2011 report, finding only 18 of the 89 people who tried to fly in areas outside a plane’s cabin, not including the cargo area, survived. The report indicated the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute, which is part of the FAA, used media reports to identify stowaway cases and noted the first recorded case happened in 1929 on a plane three Frenchmen piloted.

Indictment in November case

The JetBlue stowaway case came less than 30 days after another body was found on Dec. 24, in a landing gear — also known as the wheel well — of a United Airlines plane that landed in Maui, Hawaii after taking off from Chicago, according to the airline. It’s still not clear how the person accessed the aircraft, a United spokesperson said in an email. 

“How someone can get access to the outside of the aircraft and crawl into the landing gear wheel well is beyond understanding. These are the fissure cracks that are allowing these incidents to happen,” said Dennis Tajer, a pilot and spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association union, which represents 16,000 American Airlines pilots.

 “As professional pilots we are not only on the airplane but most importantly charged with protecting our passengers, so we demand answers to our inquiries on these failures and must be a part of the TSA plan development to stop these lapses in security,” he added.  

Two other recent breaches involving stowaways took place inside airport terminals, also during the busy holiday travel season, according to authorities.

On Dec. 24, a woman without a ticket was found on a Delta Air Lines plane in Seattle on a flight bound for Honolulu, Hawaii and removed before takeoff, according to a police complaint. 

“As there are no matters more important than safety and security, Delta people followed procedures to have an unticketed passenger removed from the flight and then apprehended,” a company spokesperson said in an email.

In another case, authorities said on Nov. 26, an allegedly unticketed passenger, Svetlana Dali, 57, boarded a Delta Air Lines plane from Kennedy Airport headed to Paris. A federal grand jury indicted Dali on Monday on a charge of stowing away on an aircraft, according to court records.

John Marzulli, a spokesman for the Eastern District U.S. Attorney’s Office, said Monday she is facing up to five years in prison if convicted. He said he expected Dali to be arraigned on the indictment Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court, when she already is scheduled for a bail violation hearing after her Dec. 16 arrest in Buffalo for allegedly cutting off her GPS device — a condition of her release after her first arrest — and attempting to enter Canada.

Dali’s attorney didn’t return a request for comment Monday.

Dali managed to pass through the TSA security checkpoint without a boarding pass by entering a lane for airline employees, according to a criminal complaint. The allegations charge that later, busy Delta employees didn’t ask to see her boarding pass.

Law enforcement officials in Paris detained her after she was found during the flight and sent her back to New York to face a federal prosecution, according to court records.

Hassan Shahidi, CEO of Virginia-based nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation, said airlines and airports must review their security systems to determine how these breaches took place.

“If desperate individuals can exploit these vulnerabilities, it raises serious concerns about potential security risks posed by those with more malicious intent,” Shahidi said in an email.

Possible intrusion areas 

Experts said the recent intrusions highlight two areas of concern, inside the airport building and outside in what’s known as the airport operations area, where planes take off, land, refuel and maintenance is performed.

The cases show security vulnerabilities because “it demonstrates that it’s still possible to get someone, which means you could get something, onto the aircraft,” said Brian Sullivan, a retired FAA special agent.

Sullivan and other experts said people sneaking on to planes expose breakdowns in TSA and airline protocols while the wheel well stowaways may point to FAA, airport and airline failures. 

Before takeoff, pilots and ground maintenance crew routinely complete a cursory visual inspection of the plane for safety issues and flag anything unusual, Sullivan and other experts said. The secure areas outside and inside airport buildings are monitored by cameras, said Schiavo.

Bogdan Dzakovic, a retired FAA “red team” leader, a role he held starting in 1995 doing covert security tests on airports, said his teams easily infiltrated security and he questions whether much has changed. 

 Records show Dzakovic testified in May 2003 before the 9/11 Commission that he and colleagues found “major vulnerabilities in aviation security” but the FAA “deliberately chose to ignore our warnings.” Weeks after 9/11, Dzakovic filed a whistleblower complaint about FAA security lapses, which the independent Office of Special Counsel upheld in March 2003, Newsday reported after his 2003 testimony.  

Dzakovic said there are three main access points that should be tightly monitored outside the airport: terminal doors that lead to the air operations area; the airfield’s exterior perimeter, commonly marked with a fence; and entry ways where employees and other people with authorization drive or walk onto the airfield. 

When it comes to slipping onto the tarmac, he said sometimes people without clearance may trail behind an authorized airport employee or try to steal their security code.  Dzakovic also said it’s important to monitor the property’s boundaries and “you cannot have breaks in the fences.” 

Robert Mann Jr., a former airline executive and president of Port Washington-based R.W. Mann & Co., an aviation consulting group, said “safety and security have to be paramount.”

As far as the Jan. 6 stowaway case involving Kennedy Airport, he said he hopes it’s a lesson learned about the need for better security.

“There are two possibilities there, one is something facilitated it, and the other possibility is something did not deter it. … Hopefully it results in no repeat of that circumstance,” Mann said. 

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