A 9-Year-Old Slipped Through Airport Security And Boarded A Plane To Vegas Without A Ticket

A 9-year-old boy boarded a Delta plane from Minneapolis to Las Vegas without a ticket on Thursday.

During the flight, the crew grew suspicious because the young boy was not on their list of minors traveling alone.

The kid is a runaway, according to the Associated Press, and was collected by child protection services when the plane landed in Las Vegas.

This type of incident is extremely rare, according to Paul Hogan, a spokesperson for the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. And for good reason. There are at least three security check points that ticketholders generally must get through before being allowed onto the plane, Paul Roy of Las Vegas' Guardian Express notes.

He writes: "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."

"I've worked at the airport for 13 years, and we have more than 33 million people go through the terminal every year, and I've never heard of anything like this happening before," Hogan told CBS local affiliate WCCO.

The Transportation Security Agency and Delta are currently investigating the issue, although some question if the glaring security breach is related to fewer staff due to the government shutdown.

According to WCCO: "A spokesperson with the Transportation Security Agency pointed out that staffing is currently low due to the number of employees furloughed in the wake of the federal government shutdown."