Authorities: He Posed as a Pilot, Got Hundreds of Free Flights

A former flight attendant for a Canadian airline posed as a commercial pilot and as a current flight attendant to obtain hundreds of free flights from US airlines, authorities say. Dallas Pokornik, 33, of Toronto was arrested in Panama after being indicted on wire fraud charges in federal court in Hawaii last October. He pleaded not guilty on Tuesday following his extradition, per the AP. According to court documents, Pokornik was a flight attendant for a Toronto-based airline from 2017 to 2019, then used fake employee identification from that carrier to obtain tickets reserved for pilots and flight attendants on three other airlines.

US prosecutors said on Tuesday that Pokornik even requested to sit in an extra seat in the cockpit—the "jump seat"—typically reserved for off-duty pilots. It wasn't clear from court documents whether he ever actually rode in a plane's cockpit, and the US Attorney's Office declined to say. The indictment didn't identify the airlines, except to say they're based in Honolulu, Chicago, and Fort Worth, Texas. Representatives for Hawaiian Airlines, United Airlines, and American Airlines—which are respectively based in those cities—didn't immediately respond to emails from the AP seeking comment. Air Canada, which is based in Toronto, also didn't respond to an email seeking comment.

The scheme lasted four years, US prosecutors in Hawaii said. A US magistrate judge on Tuesday ordered Pokornik to remain in custody. His federal defender declined to comment. In 2023, an off-duty airline pilot riding in the cockpit of a Horizon Air flight said, "I'm not OK" just before trying to cut the engines midflight. That pilot, Joseph Emerson, later told police he'd been struggling with depression; a federal judge sentenced him to time served last November. The allegations against Pokornik are reminiscent of Catch Me If You Can, the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio that tells the real-life story of Frank Abagnale, who posed as a pilot to defraud an airline and obtain free flights.