Stowaway exposes airport security flaws
Print Edition
SURVEILLANCE cameras at San Jose International Airport, in California captured a teenager as he climbed up the landing gear of a jet.
But in the end, the cameras failed because no one noticed the security breach until the plane — and the boy, lucky to be alive — landed in Hawaii.
Although the 15-year-old apparently wanted nothing more than to run away, his success in slipping past layers of security Sunday morning made it clear that a determined person can still get into a supposedly safe area and sneak onto a plane.
Just because something is caught on camera doesn’t mean it will make an impression.
Despite great promise, “sometimes the actual results are quite underwhelming when it gets to the real world, where people are fatigued, people are preoccupied,” said Richard Bloom, an airport security expert at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona.
“There’s no way to guarantee security, even if you had one person per video screen.”
There were no obvious efforts Monday to increase security or the police presence at airports in San Jose or Maui, Hawaii.
In San Jose, airport officials said they were reviewing how the boy slipped through security that includes video surveillance, dogs and Segway-riding police.
While each of those measures can work for certain situations, “the problem is that each layer has its own error factor,” Bloom said.
Nobody monitoring security cameras throughout the 424-hectare airport saw anyone approaching the Boeing 767 until they reviewed the footage after the boy was discovered in Hawaii, San Jose airport spokeswoman Rosemary Barnes said.
The airport is surrounded by fences, although many sections do not have barbed wire and could easily be scaled.
Barnes said the boy went onto the tarmac when it was still dark. The flight took off at about 8am, about 90 minutes after sunrise.
The boy was unconscious most of the 5 1/2-hour flight and didn’t regain consciousness until an hour after the plane landed in Hawaii, FBI spokesman Tom Simon said. When he came to, he climbed out of the wheel well and was spotted by airport personnel, Simon said.
Surveillance video at Kahului Airport on Maui showed the boy getting out of the wheel well after landing, transportation officials in Hawaii said.
The boy was not charged with a crime, Simon said.
Airport police were said to be working with the FBI and the Transportation Security Administration to review security.
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