The FBI is investigating after a man, who authorities say was a non-ticketed passenger, was removed from a Delta Air Lines flight at Salt Lake City International Airport on Sunday morning.
According to a criminal complaint filed in the case, officers arrested Wycliffe Florizard, 26, of George, Texas, who was taken off Flight 1683, which was scheduled to head to Austin.
He had a boarding pass when going through security, but not for the flight he took, the complaint says.
It says Florizard told police he was in Utah on a snowboarding trip to Park City but had to return home to see family members who had flown in from Florida. He said a friend gave him a free Southwest Airlines “friend card,” and that was the ticket he used to get through security, but the flight he intended to take was full, so he went to the Delta gate.
The complaint says he was seen on security camera video using his phone to take pictures of other people's boarding passes without their knowledge, and he apparently used one of those pictures to board a Delta plane, where he tried to hide first in the front and then the back lavatory. But when that toilet left, there were no seats left, and as the plane was moving, flight attendants realized there was a problem and the plane returned to the gate.
According to the complaint, Florizard “admitted he made a mistake and was just trying to get home.”
Salt Lake City police told CBS News that the airline called its officers to a gate in the lobby around 10:30 a.m. local time after “an in-flight incident involving Mr. Florizard as the plane was preparing to depart.”
Delta said in a statement that the airline “is cooperating with law enforcement and relevant federal agencies regarding the investigation of a non-ticketed individual being escorted from an aircraft in Salt Lake City prior to scheduled departure. We defer any additional questions to law enforcement.” “.
The TSA says in a statement that the suspect “was screened without incident at the security checkpoint… using a photo ID that matched the name on the boarding pass.”
A TSA spokesperson said: “The passenger had a boarding pass. We do not confirm flight details for individual passengers.”
But Delta told CBS News that it “did not have a ticket for DL1683, which will operate SLC-AUS on March 17.”
Police say the suspect is being held in federal custody at the Salt Lake County Metro Jail. Records indicate he remains behind bars.
Flight 1683 departed about half an hour late.
The FBI declined further comment.
Last month, a woman boarded an American Airlines flight from Nashville to Los Angeles without a boarding pass. TSA confirms the woman was able to slip through the boarding pass scan, but was subjected to magnetometer/baggage screening.
The woman was taken into FBI custody at Los Angeles Airport on February 7.
-Additional reporting by Brian Dax
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