How a stowaway boarded a Honolulu Delta flight at Sea-Tac Airport

Paige Cornwell, The Seattle Times on Dec 30, 2024

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SEATTLE — Hours before she boarded a flight to Honolulu without a ticket on Christmas Eve, the woman who has become known as the “ Delta stowaway” walked through Seattle-Tacoma International Airport barefoot with a bottle of alcohol and got in line to board at least two other flights.

Shemaiah Patrice Small, 33, did this without a boarding pass, or any identification at all that would have been required to enter the terminal during the busy holiday rush. Small was at the airport, past security checkpoints, for more than 15 hours before she boarded the Delta flight. During that time, her odd behavior was noticed by law enforcement officials, who at one point tried to speak with her in a bathroom before she got on the plane but apparently didn’t realize she had bypassed security.

Small is charged in SeaTac Municipal Court with one count of first-degree criminal trespass and one count of making a false statement to a public servant.

In response to the incident, the Transportation Security Administration said Monday it has added mitigation measures at SeaTac “in an effort to stop future attempts to board flights without a boarding pass.” The agency meters passengers to podiums where agents check travel documents and physically blocks entry points. The agency also added double-line stanchions and acrylic barriers as “additional physical elements.”

How Small was able to get through multiple security points and board a flight before her arrest is outlined in SeaTac Municipal Court documents obtained Monday by The Seattle Times.

Small allegedly slipped through the line divider of Checkpoint 3 around 9 p.m. Dec. 23 and cut to the front of the line, then stood there for several minutes, according to a Port of Seattle incident report. She then ducked under another line divider and bypassed the TSA screening that checks boarding passes and identification without being noticed.

She went through a metal detector and entered the airport. About an hour later, surveillance footage showed her getting in line as if to board a flight at two different gates and stood by a gate agent at one gate, but didn’t try to enter the jetway.

Shortly after midnight on Christmas Eve, a Port of Seattle police officer responded to reports of a suspicious person from a passenger in the South Satellite who pointed out a woman carrying a bottle of Fireball whiskey and not wearing shoes. The officer and another went to check on the woman and saw her walk into a bathroom, where they waited for about 20 minutes. The second officer went inside to speak with the woman, who said she was ill and not able to come out of a stall. They weren’t able to verify her identity or flight status.

Later, the officer confirmed the same woman had tried to board the Delta flight about 12 hours later.

At the gate for the Delta flight to Honolulu, surveillance footage showed Small stand next to a passenger who scanned his boarding pass, then walked next to him to access the jet bridge, according to court documents. She sat down in a ticketed passenger’s seat on the full flight, and a Delta employee radioed to the gate agent that they had too many passengers on board.

The ticketed passenger pointed out her seat, and the gate agent asked Small her name and for her boarding pass. She responded “Smith.” There wasn’t a Smith on the passenger list, and Small didn’t’ have a ticket, according to court documents.

The agent asked her to follow him off the plane and answer his questions, but she walked away and to the unsecured area of the airport. An officer found her in a bathroom and asked her what had happened.

According to court documents, she told the officer she had taken a train from California to Seattle to visit her boyfriend, and he bought her a ticket and walked her through the airport. She said he had told her to sit in “Seat 29” and the next thing she knew she was being told she was on the wrong flight.

In an email, TSA spokesperson Robert Langston said “multiple layers of security worked” because Small was physically screened and taken off the plane before it took off. The plane was searched and passengers were rescreened, he said.

Small’s next hearing is scheduled for late January.