A British teenager mistakenly boarded the wrong flight to Italy instead of London after he got separated from his parents at the airport.
The parents of the 15-year-old lost sight of their son at Menorca Airport, Spain, and quickly raised the alarm with authorities. However, they later found out that the boy had already successfully boarded a flight to Milan Malpensa even though he did not have a ticket for that particular flight.
British Teen Boards Wrong Flight to Italy
The family, including the teenager, was supposed to fly back home from the Spanish Balearic Island of Menorca with TUI to London Stansted. After the 15-year-old arrived in Milan, local authorities and easyJet staff met with him and arranged for his mother to fly out to be with him so they could go back to the United Kingdom together.
A spokesperson for the national police in Mallorca said that officers reviewed CCTV footage in the departures area of the airport and saw the 15-year-old getting onto a flight to Milan. They noted that when the young boy was reported missing, the airport activated its missing child alert system, but it was deactivated after he was found to have flown to Italy, according to the Independent.
A spokesperson for easyJet said that they are investigating the incident with the help of the airport, adding that they were trying to determine how the teenager boarded the flight without a ticket.
What makes the situation even more mysterious is that the teenager was able to board the flight to Italy despite a rigorous boarding pass check protocol in place. Some suggested that personnel who were checking passports and tickets temporarily left their posts after processing all of the passengers on the flight to Milan, giving the young boy a chance to sneak in.
Being Separated From His Family
The family of the British teenager has not been identified, and it was unclear whether or not they were with other children at the time of the incident. Additionally, the exact circumstances of how the boy was separated from his parents were not determined, The Sun reported.
There was a separate incident involving a teenager in the Colombian city of Bogota who caused air traffic controllers to be suspended. This was because the youngster gave out clearances to aircraft in the tower for about an hour. He allegedly talked with up to 20 different aircraft during that time, which could have had serious consequences.
This is primarily because aviation is an industry that prioritizes safety and enforces strict protocols to make sure that directions issued to planes are properly handled by air traffic controllers, as per Simple Flying.
