Italian police have arrested a 32-year-old man who used a fake identity
to try to get to fly in the cockpit of a plane at Turin airport. The
unemployed Italian was apprehended at the check-in counter while trying
to board an Air Dolomiti flight as the third pilot. The airline is part
of Germany's national carrier Lufthansa. Police have yet to name the
man, but he was operating under the assumed name of Andrea Sirlo. He was
wearing a pilot's uniform and was carrying forged identity cards that
claimed he was a qualified aviator. Police searched his bag and found
more pilot uniforms as well as fake resumes, airline badges and an
airport staff parking permit. He has been charged with a breach of
airport security and impersonation.
Investigators have discovered that "Mr Sirlo" has successfully pulled
off his scam at least once before. Police said: "On at least one
occasion in 2012, he posed as a pilot of a foreign commercial airline,
and with a fake name succeeded in flying as the third pilot in the
cockpit." A search of MyFlightBook.com, a website that tracks flight
details, also shows that a pilot named Andrea Sirlo flew from Munich
airport to Turin on 23 October, 2011. Sirlo said he was inspired by the
2002 Leonardo DiCaprio movie "Catch Me If You Can". In the film,
DiCaprio plays a real-life con artist who flew over one million miles on
over 250 flights in the 1960s. "I saw that film and I wanted to be like
[that guy]," Sirlo reportedly told police.
