9-year-old sneaks onto plane at MSP Int'l Airport

[displacedinMN]

http://www.kare11.com/news/article/1...P-Intl-Airport

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - Despite numerous checkpoints and gate agents, officials at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport say a 9-year-old was somehow able to sneak through security and onto a Delta flight headed to Las Vegas.

"At this point, this is a Delta and TSA issue," said airport spokesperson Pat Hogan. "This is a rare incident."

The security mishap occurred Thursday on Delta Flight 1651. It wasn't until the plane landed in Las Vegas when the boy was stopped and questioned.

MSP officials say they've reviewed security footage and at this point do not believe he was carrying a boarding pass.

In a statement sent to KARE-11, Delta officials said, "We are investigating the incident and cooperating with the agencies involved." Authorities with the TSA released a similar statement.

"It's crazy," said Ryan Linderman, while passing through MSP airport Saturday. "I have an 8-year-old and that freaks me out."

Authorities believe the 9-year-old boy is a runaway from the Twin Cities.

"He had to pass three levels of security," said Terry Trippler, an air travel expert with ThePlaneRules.com. "You have the TSA, the gate agents, and the flight crew and a child comes through without even a seat assignment."

Trippler says stowaway cases like this are rare especially after 9/11.

"While we are safer in the air, this proves there are still gaping holes," he said.

KARE 11 learned that the boy also spent Wednesday at the airport, too. MSP officials say he took someone's luggage off a carousel, ordered food at a pre-security restaurant, asked the server to watch his luggage while he went to the restroom, but never returned.

Hogan says the boy is returning to the Twin Cities. Las Vegas police, Hennepin County authorities, and the boy's parents are working together.

I did not watch the video on their site.
In our video here, the reporter said:

"He was spotted Wednesday at the airport also. He stole someones luggage and ate at a restaurant then left without paying"

"The parents are involved"

I yelled-"the hell they are"
What kind of parent lets this happen?

[displacedinMN]

MPLS Paper

The 9-year-old boy who stowed away on a Delta flight from Minneapolis to Las Vegas on Thursday passed through three security checkpoints at the airport without a boarding pass or identification, officials and an airline expert said Sunday.

The boy got through the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) checkpoint, past a Delta gate agent and didn’t get scrutinized by flight attendants before the plane took off, said Terry Trippler, owner of ThePlaneRules.com.

“I put it more on Delta than the TSA,” said Trippler, who said he stood next to the TSA checkpoint Saturday to talk to a TV news crew.

The boy blended in with a family traveling with children, and if an adult handed the TSA agent six boarding passes, it would be fairly easy to miss it if there were seven people, Trippler said.

“The kid’s smart,” Trippler said. “I’m going to give them [the TSA agent] a little break. The way I look at it is, Delta, this is a person getting on your flight. You make sure they’re all there. A lot of people want to come down on the TSA. I could see where it could happen. I could see where it could happen with Delta, too, but it really shouldn’t happen with Delta.”

Leslie Scott, a spokeswoman from Delta, said Sunday that the incident is under investigation. The airline “is working with the various authorities involved,” she said.

A TSA spokeswoman said the same thing Sunday.

The boy, who has not been identified, actually went to the airport both Wednesday and Thursday via light-rail, Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman Pat Hogan said Sunday.

On Wednesday, he took a bag off the baggage carousel, went through TSA security and had lunch at a restaurant in the area that leads to the concourses. The boy told waitstaff at the restaurant that he had to use the restroom. Since there isn’t a restroom in the restaurant, the boy had to enter one of the concourses. He left the bag and his lunch bill behind and never returned, Hogan said.

The bag belonged to an arriving passenger. When the passenger arrived, airport personnel were waiting for him and returned the bag to him. The passenger went through the bag and reported that nothing was missing.

On Thursday, the boy was seen on surveillance video talking to a Delta agent at the flight gate, Hogan said. When that agent was busy, the boy walked down the jetway and onto the plane.

It’s unclear whether the boy chose the flight to Las Vegas at random or specifically wanted to get to the gambling mecca.

“It’s hard to piece anything together from his stories why he got on the flight and went to Las Vegas,” Hogan said.

The flight was not full and there were empty seats, Hogan said. The flight crew became suspicious midflight because the boy was not on their list of unattended minors and didn’t appear to be traveling with an adult.

Las Vegas police were notified and took the boy into protective custody when the flight landed. His parents were notified immediately but it’s not clear whether someone flew to Las Vegas to retrieve him or whether he was put on a flight back to Minneapolis.

Trippler said the incident “doesn’t bolster your confidence in the security system. “It’s not truly scary but it shows a situation where these people are human and they’re going to make mistakes.” He said the bigger message for passengers is if they see something, say something.

“It tells us passengers, always heads up,” Trippler said.

Again, where are the parents?
Schools robo call if a kid is not in school. At that point, wouldn't you say "Where is my kid?"

[displacedinMN]

update

Before a 9-year-old boy stowed away on a flight to Las Vegas last week, he had already stolen a car, snuck into a Bloomington water park without paying and come under the scrutiny of child protection investigators, a Hennepin County official wrote Monday.

In a one-page email obtained by the Star Tribune, Janine Moore, area director of the county’s Human Services and Public Health Department, told administrators and County Board members that since December 2012, county staff has conducted four child-protection assessments on the boy’s family.

“The reports have been inconsistent and there have been no injuries to the child; however, there is a pattern of behavior,” she wrote in the email, marked “private data.”

She didn’t identify the boy, his family or where they live, but wrote that his mother works at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, so “there is also an investigation into whether she aided him flying to Las Vegas.”

Last Thursday, the boy passed through three security checkpoints to board a flight to Nevada without a ticket. His story captured national attention because of his preternatural cunning in eluding detection at supposedly stringent security checkpoints that require identification, boarding passes, body and baggage searches. The day before the flight, the boy had conducted a detailed reconnaissance trip at the airport that involved taking a piece of luggage from a carousel, then dining and ditching it at an airport restaurant.

On Thursday, to pass through the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) checkpoint for his flight, the boy reportedly blended in with a family with children. He was seen on surveillance video chatting with a Delta gate agent, then walking down the jetway when the agent was distracted. The Vegas-bound flight had empty seats, and attendants didn’t realize what the boy had done until after takeoff, when his name wasn’t on the flight manifest as an unaccompanied minor.

When the plane landed in Las Vegas, the boy was met by local police, taken into custody and put into a foster home, Moore wrote. He became “violent” and was hospitalized, Moore wrote. Initially, hospital staff said he was “uncontrollable,” but he eventually calmed down, she wrote.

She wrote that a hearing was planned in Las Vegas on Monday morning to authorize his return to Minnesota. Neither Las Vegas nor Hennepin County officials would comment on the status of the hearing or provide an update on his location.

The boy is known to Hennepin County Human Services staff as a “challenging” child, Moore wrote. She said that two weeks ago, he stole a car and was arrested on “Highway 35.” The e-mail didn’t say whether the boy was driving or where he was arrested.

Reached by phone, Moore declined to comment further.

The boy also has a “history” of riding light rail to a Bloomington water park, where he “waits until a large family is entering and joins them,” she wrote. He has alleged that his mother held a knife to his throat, as well as that his mother was “stabbed and died.”

Of county interactions with the child, Moore wrote, “Typically, staff can tell if a child is lying, but with this child, they are unsure what is going on. This is a two-parent home, and there is at least one other child.”

Boy’s future uncertain

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman’s child protection unit is reviewing the case, a spokesman said. Moore told county administrators that the boy’s future could go two directions. If he has been mistreated, his case would go to child protection, she wrote. That could mean removal from his home.

If the boy has a mental health issue, then the response could be a “behavioral health response,” she wrote. Moore didn’t detail what the behavioral options are.

Because of his age, the boy cannot be charged with a crime.

Las Vegas police took him into custody his flight landed and called Minneapolis police, who took a missing-child report and went to the boy’s home. The family said he hadn’t been seen since Thursday morning.

Many issues beyond TSA here.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by displacedinMN

MPLS Paper


Again, where are the parents?
Schools robo call if a kid is not in school. At that point, wouldn't you say "Where is my kid?"

In this case, maybe not. Maybe you take the wife to dinner and neither of you says another word. You give him the ol' Chuck Cunningham treatment.