A nine-year-old boy was able to board a plane in Minnesota and fly to Nevada with no ticket or boarding pass.
Does this make you feel safer? A nine-year-old boy was able to board a plane in Minnesota and fly to Nevada with no ticket or boarding pass.
The big question in this case is how did this boy get through at least three layers of security at the airport? There are three levels of security he would need to have passed through. The first checkpoint is the screening by the TSA, including metal detectors. Then he would have had to get by the Delta Airlines gate agents before boarding the plane. The last level of security would be the flight crew themselves who should have questioned why the boy had no boarding pass before the plane took off.
This only provides further proof that the entire TSA is a complete waste of money.
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Does this make you feel safer? A nine-year-old boy was able to board a plane in Minnesota and fly to Nevada with no ticket or boarding pass.
The big question in this case is how did this boy get through at least three layers of security at the airport? There are three levels of security he would need to have passed through. The first checkpoint is the screening by the TSA, including metal detectors. Then he would have had to get by the Delta Airlines gate agents before boarding the plane. The last level of security would be the flight crew themselves who should have questioned why the boy had no boarding pass before the plane took off.
This only provides further proof that the entire TSA is a complete waste of money.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either. IMPORTANT! If you donate enough to get a book, please email me separately to tell me which book you want and the address to mail it to.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Did anyone ask the kid how he did it?
Also, link?
Link added. Sorry.
Heh, that’s an awesome story.
There’s really only two tiers of security: the TSA check at Security, and the scanning of the boarding pass at the gate. The only time I’ve had a flight attendant check my boarding pass was when the same seat was assigned to two people (it happens). Flight attendants generally assume that if you’re on the plane, you’ve successfully passed muster at the previous checkpoints.
I can see a child getting past a busy gate agent; an adult could do it, too. The TSA lapse is a bit harder to explain. I suspect TSA agents don’t look at children with the same level of scrutiny as adults: children under 12 aren’t required to remove their shoes, for example. Perhaps he just attached himself to a likely looking couple, and got in with the flow of people. If the flight has been completely booked, and everyone with a ticket had shown up, he would have been caught out. It appears luck and human fallibility worked in his favor.
Actually there is a third level of security that the flight crew does.
ALL unaccompanied minors MUST check in with the gate and then check in with the crew. The crew is informed they are unaccompanied and are to make sure they get to their seat and around the aircraft ok. Unaccompanied minors can NOT sit in any emergency exit seats.
Just seeing a child on the plane should have alerted them to check the boarding pass lists for an unaccompanied minor. Or at least ask the person sitting next to them if they are the parent if the child is not on the lists.
It appears that this final level of security is what got him.The stewardess thought it odd for him to be traveling with no boarding pass. The fact it took them until after takeoff is a troubling thing.
The kids pretty smart though to have made it around those crack security guards of the TSA and their one way single lane checkpoints.
I bet this kid has had the run of the airport for at least a week before boarding the plane. I bet he found out how to get through the employee doors and make his way around security.
They said they found him on video tape at the baggage area, getting off the railway into the airport and also at a restaurant after the security area, but not at the security area.
I must respectfully disagree with your assessment. You state that ‘ALL unaccompanied minors MUST check in with the gate and then check in with the crew.’ If a minor is looking to game the system, they’re not going to comply with the rules and regs. Unaccompanied minors are common on flights; there’s no reason the flight crew would think there’s anything out of the ordinary. The motives of an intent human are not to be confused with a law-abiding citizen.
When sending my son from one end of this country to the other to visit his mother I couldn’t find a single airline that would take him without paying the extra for an unaccompanied minor.
For one the child must now show id or birth certificate along with his pass at all check points. From the ticket counter to the security stations to the boarding areas.
Minor is any child under 14 or 15 depending on airlines. Heck I even had to show his birth certificate and once my custody papers when I accompanied him.
For three years straight me and him were singled out and given the extra inspection at the Oakland airport leaving California. 3 Years straight. We were told each time it was a random check. Even though the three obviously Muslim men just ahead of us were not given the extra look over.
If some child is getting on the plane without going through any of this please inform me of the airport so I could use it more.
If some child is getting past all the security then its securities fault for letting a 9 year old walk across the whole of the airport from the door to get in to the plane itself.
I used to fly unaccompanied all the time. But that was 30 years ago. No security and or checks. I could have and did walk right out onto the tarmak to see the planes. Try that one now. No 10 year old will do it and get away with it.
Any child you see alone on a plane now is known by the crew. You might just not notice it. They don’t have signs around their necks all the time. They are often boarded first or last, if you want to identify them that way.