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. "The FBI says a 16-year-old boy stowed away in the wheel well of a flight from California to Hawaii, and survived. The boy is expected to fully recover."


 The AP is now saying the boy is 15, not 16, as was earlier reported.


, the unidentified teen survived the trip "halfway across the Pacific Ocean unharmed despite frigid temperatures at 38,000 feet and a lack of oxygen, FBI and airline officials said."


 FBI spokesman Tom Simon says the "kid's lucky to be alive." The news service adds:


KHON spoke with airlines analyst Peter Forman, who said:

The boy, Simon told the AP, has been handed over to child protective services in Hawaii and will not be charged with a crime. The jet he reportedly stowed away on was a Boeing 767.

In California, the wire service adds, "a Mineta San Jose International Airport spokeswoman said airport police were working with the FBI and the Transportation Security Agency to review security at the facility as part of an investigation."


U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat whose district includes cities and suburbs east of the San Francisco Bay Area and who serves on the Committee on Homeland Security, 

 he has "long been concerned about security at our airport perimeters. #Stowaway teen demonstrates vulnerabilities that need to be addressed."


Update at 11 a.m. ET. More On How Incredible This Seems:


"Some experts theorized that because of the unforgiving conditions, the boy's body went into a state of hibernation, remaining unconscious until the plane reached a lower altitude," 

. [It's] 'a medical miracle, akin to those who fall into frozen rivers and survive,' said former San Francisco International Airport spokesman Michael McCarron."
The 

 adds that "pilot and aviation consultant John Nance said the incident is 'one of three things — a hoax, a miracle or we're going to have to rewrite the textbooks if he actually did what he says he did. He needs to be studied very carefully by medical science because this is not supposed to be possible.' "  Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott

Author

Newspaper reports say the unidentified teen survived the trip "halfway across the Pacific Ocean unharmed despite frigid temperatures at 38,000 feet and a lack of oxygen, FBI and airline officials said."

Teen survives Hawaii flight in jet wheel well

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