Repeat JFK Stowaway Again Slips Onto Newark–Milan United Flight

CBS reports that Svetlana Dali, a Russian national previously convicted of stowing away on a 2024 Delta flight from JFK to Paris, allegedly boarded a United Airlines flight from Newark Liberty International Airport to Milan without a ticket on Wednesday night. Police and airline sources say she appears to have bypassed normal boarding controls at Newark’s Terminal C and took one of roughly 20 empty seats, only being discovered by flight attendants midway through the transatlantic flight; because she was non‑disruptive and already over the ocean, the crew continued to Milan. Italian authorities are now processing Dali and will decide whether to bring charges before United is required to transport her back to the United States, where she already has a federal stowaway conviction and had been on supervised release after removing a GPS monitor and briefly trying to reach Canada. United has begun reviewing security video and procedures to determine how she got past the gate, while TSA is expected to conduct its own review of checkpoint and ticket/ID checks to see whether she slipped through or avoided them entirely. The case, which follows her July 2025 federal sentencing to time served plus a year of supervision, underscores how a determined repeat offender can still exploit gaps in airline and airport processes that are supposed to prevent unauthorized boarding of international flights.