An undercover passenger with Israeli and Russian citizenship was caught last month flying from Copenhagen to Los Angeles Airport (LAX) without a plane ticket, passport or visa. When questioned in the United States and asked how he infiltrated the flight, the man replied that he "didn't know how he did it."
Sergei Vladimirovich Uchiga, a citizen of Israel and Russia, is now accused by the US FBI of infiltrating a flight without having a plane ticket or visa. Uchiga, himself, who was asked by FBI investigators how he boarded the plane, claims memory loss when he can't remember how he managed to get through security at Copenhagen Airport without a plane ticket.
The man's infiltration into the flight is not a classic story of an undercover passenger, for the reason that Uchiga did not try to hide himself at all. He stood out, enjoying five-star treatment, eating double portions at every meal served by the staff and going further and trying to eat the chocolate bars for flight attendants and crew members as well.
LAX Airport, Photo: AFP
Crew members told FBI investigators that "nothing seemed suspicious" about the passenger's behavior. In fact, Uchiga, seemed to be a perfectly normal passenger except for the fact that he changed his seat throughout the flight several times.
Despite the man's usual behavior, it turned out that he was not supposed to be on the flight at all. The man's infiltration into the flight (flight SK 931) was only discovered when he landed at LAX Airport, when airport controllers discovered that he did not have a passport and called the security forces.
An investigation revealed that Uchiga was not only not supposed to be on the plane on which he arrived in the United States, but he was not even registered for any flight that was supposed to leave Copenhagen for any other destination in the world. FBI investigators, who questioned the man, heard from him that "he didn't sleep for three days straight so he didn't understand what he was doing." Caroline Walling, the FBI's official who investigated the man, wrote that "when Uchiga was asked how he infiltrated the plane and passed security in Copenhagen, he replied that he didn't remember how he managed to do it when he didn't even have a ticket."
The passenger was questioned by FBI officials, Photo: Reuters
The FBI investigator added that the crew did not suspect anyone because he did not take the place of another passenger but sat in an empty seat so that there was no suspicion about his stay on the flight. Moreover, the crew members did count the number of passengers on board, several times throughout the flight, to make sure that all the passengers were present, but they did not compare this number to the number written in the flight diary and therefore did not discover that they had an unnecessary passenger on the plane.
In the FBI investigation, Uchiga claimed that he was a doctor of economics and that he forgot his passport on the plane. However, the investigators searched for the passport and did not find it, contrary to the man's version. Faced with this situation, the man changed his version and claimed that he had not slept for three days straight and that he did not fully know how to explain what he did on the flight.
After the man's version turned out to be false, investigators searched his travel bag. An Israeli and Russian identity card were found there, as well as a partial photocopy of a passport. Another search of the man's cell phone showed that he had taken pictures of the Copenhagen airport flight schedule while he was at the airport. It was also found by scanning the man's map app that he was staying at a hostel in the German city of Kiel and that he also had street maps of another city that was not identified by investigators.
Asked about the incident, a spokesperson for Scandinavia Airlines said: "I can confirm that there was an incident where a passenger departed Denmark on an SAS flight. The case is being handled by the appropriate authorities in the United States and Denmark and therefore should be contacted for further details."
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