Boy, 9, Sneaks On A Plane to Texas
How did a 9 year old boy get from Washington state to San Antonio, TX? By sneaking onto two Southwest Airlines flights.
- Police in Lakewood, Washington, say the boy (Semaj Booker) has a history of stealing cars and running away from home. He was apparently trying to get to Dallas, where his grandfather lives, and where the boy himself used to live. But he came up short, only getting as far as San Antonio after hopping two separate flights.
Police say he apparently found a Southwest Airlines boarding card and made it through airport security.
Boy, 9, sneaks on to plane [Tampa 10]
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I have had it with these motherf***ing sneaks on this motherf***ing plane!
Matthew beat me to the joke. Damn you, Matthew!
Clearly, the only thing we can do is ban anyone under 18 from air travel. Heckuva job TSA!
WindowSeat, I think I would actually get behind that TSA ban.
My son is nine and flies alone every school break to visit his grandparents. We always send him on Southwest because they seemed to have their crap together when it comes to handling Unaccompanied Minors.
How in the world did this kid get past the gate without a card identifying him as a UM? Did he just glom onto another family and pretend he was with a parent? Why didn't the gate agent stop a kid flying alone and ask to see his UM card? As a mom, this kind of thing scares the crap out of me.
So...what if this was a 9 year old terrorist? 9 year olds can just sneak onto planes undetected?
VA_White:
I'm half joking about banning kids from flights, but its more a lack of parental control than the kid's faults. I really want to congratulate you on letting your son fly UM though. I went to a boarding school in Southern California whan I was a kid and flew home to San Francisco two or three times a month by myself at about the same age and its one of my favorite childhood memories. The boarding school, not so much.
The best part of the article is the last line: "[His mother] thinks he learned how to drive from playing video games."
As though video games are somehow responsible for the fact that this kid has managed to steal and crash three cars, then sneak on a plane to Texas.
Obviously I don't know what the family's situation is, but it certainly seems like he could use a bit more discipline -- or at least supervision -- from some kind of role model.
As though video games are somehow responsible for the fact that this kid has managed to steal and crash three cars, then sneak on a plane to Texas.
Perhaps he snuck on the plane under a cardboard box...
Thank god he wasn't carrying any liquids!
How did he get to the airport in the first place? Was that part of his history of stealing cars?
Y'know, "Sleepless in Seattle" is probably my second all-time-favorite romantic movie, but I never could quite buy having Tom Hanks' young son manage to fly by himself from Seattle to New York City (and this was in pre-9/11 and even pre-Unabomber days).
Now I'll have to rethink that. ..bruce..
Perhaps he snuck on the plane under a cardboard box...
You win!
Am I the only one who saw "Semaj" and thought this was a joke?
That said, I do wonder how no-one caught/cared that he was an UM...
Little bastard's probably going to have a book and movie deal by next week.
@phrygian
I guess "Semaj" is "James" spelled backwards. Maybe he's named after someone named James, but with a twist.
The kid is a piker. My brother stole a car when he was seven.
He turned out okay, he's a network admin now....
Does this mean children will have to be checked in with my oversized luggage?
Nice one, AlteredBeast. I wonder how many got that reference.
In the meantime I am getting pulled to the side, my bag swabbed, shook down, shoes x-rayed and this kid just walks past them. Oh the irony. I took a bath tub spa thing with me on my last flight from Omaha to Milwaukee and they had to swab the bag because all the hoses and stuff in there. Looked like an obscure vacuum cleaner.
Theres mutha **** MINORS on this mutha **** plane.
HA! Not just one, but TWO flights! Sounds like a resourceful young man.