Boy, 9, flies 1,500 miles without a ticket

A nine year old boy has managed to board a plane in the US and fly 1,500 miles without a ticket.

The runaway, who has not been named, snuck through security at Minnesota airport and found his way onto a flight to Las Vegas.

Stories like this always interest me, but it does puzzle me why headlines for stories like this always make an issue of how far people without tickets get, surely that’s missing the point?

The focus should be on the fact that someone managed to get on a plane without a ticket, not how far along in the journey it was before they were discovered.

Once someone has made it on to a plane without a ticket that’s it the system has failed, how far they get is very much secondary.

Although it is quite worrying when you read these kinds of stories, particularly in this instance as a 9 year old has managed to overcome all the checks and procedures airports have these days to prevent this kind of thing.