A Texas man was arrested in Salt Lake City on Sunday after he boarded a Delta Air Lines flight without a ticket using a photo he took from another passenger’s boarding pass while they weren’t looking, according to court documents.
The man, Wicliff Yves Fleurizard, 26, faces a felony count of stowaway on ships 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 flight to Austin, Texas, on Sunday, Mr. Fleurizard went to the restroom at the front of the plane and remained there until the flight was fully boarded and the doors were secured, according to the federal complaint.
Mr Fleurizard then went to the back of the plane and went to a toilet there, according to court records. When he got outside, a flight attendant noticed there were no open seats as the plane was about to taxi to the runway, court records show.
The flight attendant asked Mr. Fleurizard where his seat was and he said it was 21F, which was already taken, the complaint states. After flight attendants could not find Mr. Fleurizard on their manifest, they realized he was not authorized to be on the flight and the plane returned to the gate, according to the complaint.
Mr. Fleurizard told police he was on a snowboarding trip in Park City, Utah, and needed to go home to see his family, according to the complaint. He said he was given a Southwest Airlines “buddy pass” by a friend, the complaint said.
Mr. Fleurizard told police he tried to board a Southwest flight at 3 p.m. on Saturday, but that the flight was full, according to court documents. He then tried to fly home on a Southwest flight at 6 a.m. Sunday, he said, but that flight was also full, according to court documents.
The Transportation Security Administration said Wednesday that Mr. Fleurizard cleared through security at Salt Lake City International Airport on Sunday without incident, using photo identification and a boarding pass.
Surveillance footage from Sunday showed Mr. Fleurizard taking pictures from the phones of several passengers in a Delta Air Lines boarding area while they weren’t looking, according to the complaint. The video then showed Mr. Fleurizard using his phone to board the Delta flight.
Mr. Fleurizard “admitted that he had made a mistake and was just trying to get home,” the complaint said.
The FBI said Wednesday it was investigating the incident, but declined to provide further details.
No attorney for Mr. Fleurizard was listed in court records as of Wednesday afternoon.
Delta Air Lines said in a statement that it was “cooperating with law enforcement and appropriate federal agencies regarding an investigation into an individual without a ticket” on Sunday.
In recent months, there have been several similar cases in which passengers were able to board flights without a ticket in the United States and abroad.
In February, a woman boarded a flight in Nashville and flew to Los Angeles without a ticket. In November, a man breezed through security at Copenhagen Airport in Denmark and flew to Los Angeles International Airport with only Russian and Israeli ID cards in his bag.
