In what is being described as a suspicious circumstance, police in Massachusetts believe that a teen may have fallen out of the wheel-well of an airplane. The body of the North Carolina teenager was found mangled in the small town of Milton. Investigators suspect that the youngster, who had run away from home, may have not known that wheel-wells are not heated nor pressurized.
A recent article states:
Police have been unable to explain why Delvonte Tisdale, a high school student who ran away from his home in Charlotte, North Carolina, would have been in Milton, Massachusetts, some 850 miles away, where he had no known ties.
“We have been asked to provide some information about flight tracks and flight approaches that go over that community,” said Phil Orlandella, a spokesman for Logan International Airport. Some planes approaching the airport fly over Milton, Orlandella said.
What is not known or explained in the article is if the suspected airplane was a commercial flight. If it was a commercial flight, how was the teen able to get by security and hide in the wheel-well? Are we concentrating so much on passenger screening that security on the runaway has become lax?
Comments as always are welcome.
PS The FAA has confirmed that a commercial flight from North Carolina en route to Boston did fly over Milton. It also confirmed that this is just about the time that the pilot would have lowered the landing gear of the airplane.
I don’t want to live in a country where someone who’s stupid enough to try – can’t stow away in a wheel well.
Seriously though, complete security is impossible. Where there is a will – there is a way. We should try to attain enough security where ~90% of people who would try – don’t. 100% secure is as unattainable as an unsinkable ship.
As for the kid… wow. Too many movies, and not enough science.
[...] A runaway high-school student found his way into the “secured area” of the airport and stowed away in a wheel-well of an outbound flight to Boston. Later that day his mangled body was found in Milton which is on [...]