HONOLULU (AP) — A frequent flight attendant accused of posing as a pilot and dealing airline employee fooled three U.S. carriers into giving him hundreds of free tickets over a span of 4 years, federal authorities train. However exactly how he’s speculated to maintain performed it — and why the airways wouldn’t maintain caught on sooner — has industry insiders scratching their heads.
Dallas Pokornik, 33, of Toronto, become arrested in Panama after being indicted on wire fraud fees in federal court docket in Hawaii final October. He pleaded no longer responsible Tuesday following his extradition to the United States. His federal public defender declined to talk in regards to the case.
Per court docket paperwork, Pokornik become a flight attendant for a Toronto-essentially essentially based airline from 2017 to 2019, then feeble fraudulent employee identification from that provider to manufacture tickets reserved for pilots and flight attendants on three other airways. Court docket paperwork contained no explanation of why, in an industry targeted on flight and airport security, the airways didn’t sight the credentials as invalid.
The indictment failed to name any of the airways alive to but acknowledged the U.S. carriers are essentially essentially based in Honolulu, Chicago and Fort Worth, Texas. A spokesperson for Hawaiian Airlines acknowledged Wednesday the company would no longer comment on litigation. Representatives for United Airlines and American Airlines failed to right away acknowledge to emails from The Connected Press.
One Canadian provider essentially essentially based in Toronto, Porter Airlines, acknowledged in an emailed assertion it become “unable to study any data linked to this fable.” Air Canada, which is essentially essentially based in Montreal but has a basic hub in Toronto, acknowledged it had no tale of Pokornik working there.
Allegations shock industry experts
John Cox, a retired pilot who runs an aviation security firm in St. Petersburg, Florida, called the allegations aesthetic, pondering the rotten-checking that airways are in a jam to hang to study the employment of a crew member looking out for to hover on one more airline.
Airlines on the general rely on databases of active airline staff maintained on third-celebration websites to study whether or no longer any individual is in actuality an employee.
“The absolute top part I will think is that they did no longer account for him as no longer employed by the airline,” Cox acknowledged in a mobile phone interview Wednesday. “Consequently when the assessments had been made on the gate, he showed up as a sound employee.”
Passenger airways in overall provide such free or steeply discounted standby seats, when readily accessible, to their procure crew members or those of different carriers — a courtesy that makes your entire industry characteristic better, by getting crew members where they wish to head. Workers can additionally exercise the perk for their quick families when flying for leisure. Most incessantly staff may maybe maybe sit down in indubitably a number of the “jump seats” with shoulder harnesses in the cockpit or in the cabin, but federal principles limit the cockpit jump seats from being feeble for leisure commute.
How the screening generally works
Crew members who wish to commute to 1 more metropolis for work fight via airport security by scanning a “known crew member” card linked to a database that has their describe, acknowledged Bruce Rodger, an airline pilot who owns an aviation consulting firm. They additionally present an employee badge and authorities-issued identification.
Utilizing the known crew member process for leisure commute isn’t allowed, he acknowledged.
For leisure commute, crew members must aquire discounted standby tickets or seek data from a jump seat. With a standby label, a crew member reaches the gates by capability of customary airport security screening. It’s that you likely can additionally whisper to maintain a standby label but seek data from a jump seat, which enables the worker to hover for free.
The aircraft’s captain must approve who rides in the cockpit jump seats. Continually that’s a licensed pilot but Federal Aviation Administration rules additionally allow for others with knowledgeable causes to be there love a Defense Division evaluator, an air traffic controller gazing, a crew member or a representative of the producer.
In 2023, an off-duty airline pilot riding in the cockpit of a Horizon Air flight acknowledged “I’m no longer OK” lawful sooner than attempting to slit the engines midflight. That pilot, Joseph Emerson, later told police he had been combating depression. A federal think sentenced that man to time served final November.
Pokornik asked to hotfoot in the cockpit, prosecutors train
U.S. prosecutors acknowledged Tuesday that Pokornik requested to sit down in the cockpit’s jump seat — in overall reserved for off-duty pilots. It become no longer decided from court docket paperwork whether or no longer he ever in actuality rode in a aircraft’s cockpit, and the U.S. Legal legitimate’s Build aside of job in Honolulu declined to instruct.
Years ago, the airline industry tightened up the requirements for the flight advantages staff rep after the eminent case of Frank Abagnale, whose exaggerated 1980 memoir, “Earn Me If You Can,” described posing as a pilot to hover for free, among other cons. His fable received extra popularity when Steven Spielberg made it accurate into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio in 2002.
Extra restrictions on who can pick up aboard a aircraft and inside of a cockpit had been imposed by the airways and FAA after the September 11, 2001, terrorist assaults.
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AP transportation writer Josh Funk contributed to this document from Omaha, Nebraska.
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This fable has been corrected to showcase that Air Canada is essentially essentially based in Montreal, no longer Toronto.