A stolen boarding pass let a man get beyond security in Salt Lake City, Utah, before being arrested once he boarded the Southwest Airlines flight to California Nov. 5, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Michael Salata, 61, swiped a woman's boarding pass that was accidentally left at a check-in kiosk.
Salata, a convicted sex offender, was arrested when the woman whose boarding pass he was using also checked into the flight using a replacement ticket uploaded on her phone, said police, according to the Blaze.
Salata had used the stolen boarding pass to go through the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening and checkpoint with airport security, check in at the gate for the flight and board the plane before being arrested.
"He tried to make it seem like it was a mistake, that the boarding pass printed incorrectly, or that he grabbed the wrong boarding pass," said Chief of Airport Police Craig Vargo.
Southwest Airlines was under fire earlier this week when they refused to allow an Arabic-speaking man to board the plane when another passenger expressed fear to the crew, as previously reported by HNGN. The Philadelphia pizza shop owner said he was humiliated when briefly stopped from boarding his flight out of Chicago.
