A Texas man was arrested Sunday in Salt Lake City for boarding a Delta flight without a ticket using a photo of his boarding pass taken when no other passengers were looking, according to court documents.
The man, Wycliff Eve Fleurizar, 26, faces one felony count of stowaway in a vessel or aircraft, according to a complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Utah. He was being held at the Salt Lake County Metro Jail, according to the Salt Lake City Police Department.
After boarding a Delta Airlines flight to Austin, Texas, on Sunday, Furlizard went to the bathroom at the front of the plane and remained there until the plane was fully boarded and the door was secured, according to the federal complaint.
Fleurizal then headed to the back of the plane and entered the bathroom there, according to court records. When he emerged, the plane was taxiing to the runway when flight attendants noticed there were no seats available, according to court records.
When the flight attendant asked Fleurizal where he was seated, Fleurizal told him it was on the 21st floor and that there were already seats available, the complaint said. The flight attendants could not find Mr. Fleurizal in the manifest and realized he was not authorized to board the plane, so the plane returned to the gate, according to the complaint.
Furlizard told police he was on a snowboarding trip in Park City, Utah, and needed to get home to see his family, according to the complaint. The man said his friend gave him a Southwest Airlines “buddy pass,” according to the complaint.
According to court documents, Fleurizal told police he tried to catch a 3 p.m. Saturday Southwest flight, but the flight was full. He then attempted to return home on a 6 a.m. Sunday Southwest flight, but that flight was also full, according to court documents.
The Transportation Security Administration said Wednesday that Furlizard passed through security at Salt Lake City International Airport on Sunday using a photo ID and boarding pass without incident.
Surveillance footage from Sunday showed Fleurizal taking cellphone photos of several passengers in the Delta’s boarding area when they weren’t looking, according to the complaint. The footage then showed Fleurizal using his cell phone to board a Delta flight.
Fleurizal “just acknowledged that he had made a mistake and was trying to go home,” the complaint says.
The FBI said Wednesday it was investigating the incident, but did not provide further details.
An attorney for Mr. Fleurizal was not listed in court records as of Wednesday afternoon.
Delta Air Lines said in a statement Sunday that it is “cooperating with law enforcement and relevant federal agencies regarding investigations involving unticketed individuals.”
There have been similar cases in the past few months of passengers boarding planes without tickets in 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 at Denmark’s Copenhagen Airport and flew to Los Angeles International Airport with only his Russian and Israeli identification cards in his bag.