Court documents show a Texas man was arrested in Salt Lake City on Sunday for boarding a Delta Air Lines flight without a ticket using a photo he took of another passenger’s boarding pass when he wasn’t looking.
Wycliff Yves Fleurizard, 26, faces one felony count of stowaway on a ship or airplane, in response to a criminal criticism filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Utah. He was being held on the Salt Lake County Jail, in response to the Salt Lake City Police Department.
According to the federal criticism, after boarding a Delta flight to Austin, Texas, on Sunday, Fleurizard went to the restroom on the front of the plane and remained there until he was fully boarded and the doors were secured.
Mr. Fleurizard then went to the back of the plane and used the restroom there, in response to court records. When he left, the flight attendant noticed there have been no seats available because the plane was about to taxi to the runway, in response to court records.
The flight attendant asked Mr. Fleurizard where his seat was, and he replied that 21F was already occupied, in response to the criticism. When flight attendants couldn’t find Mr. Fleurizard on his manifest, they realized he was not authorized to be on the plane, so the plane returned to the gate, in response to the criticism.
According to the criticism, Mr. Fleurizard told police that he was on a snowboarding trip in Park City, Utah, and that he needed to return home to see his family. The criticism says he received a Southwest Airlines “friend pass” from a friend.
Mr. Fleurizard told police he tried to get on a 3 p.m. Southwest flight on Saturday, but court documents show the plane was full of passengers. He then tried to fly home on Southwest at 6 a.m. on Sunday, but court documents show that flight was also full of passengers.
On Wednesday, the Transportation Security Administration said Mr. Fleurizard was cleared through security at Salt Lake City International Airport without incident on Sunday using a photo ID and boarding pass.
The criticism shows that Sunday’s surveillance showed Mr. Fleurizard taking photos on the phones of several passengers within the Delta Air Lines departures area once they weren’t looking. The video then shows Mr. Fleurizard using his phone to board the Delta flight.
Mr. Fleurizard “admitted he made a mistake and was only trying to get home,” the criticism said.
On Wednesday, the FBI said it was investigating the incident but declined to offer any additional details.
As of Wednesday afternoon, no lawyer was listed in court records for Mr. Fleurizard.
On Sunday, Delta Air Lines said in a statement that it’s “cooperating with law enforcement and appropriate federal agencies in connection with the investigation of the ticketless individual.”
Over the past few months, there have been similar incidents of passengers boarding planes without a ticket within the United States and abroad.
In February, a woman boarded a plane in Nashville and flew to Los Angeles without a ticket. In November, a man passed through security on the Copenhagen airport in Denmark and flew to Los Angeles International Airport with only Russian and Israeli ID cards in his bag.
