'Stowaway boy thought Arik plane was US-bound'

THE teenage stowaway, Daniel Ihekina, who
was arrested at the Lagos Airport after
flying in the tyre hole of an Arik plane from
Benin to Lagos on Saturday morning,
thought he was on a US-bound flight.
A source at the Benin Airport who disclosed
this said the boy's parents had already
departed for Lagos in search of the
stowaway.
The airport source, who did not want his
name in print said, "From what we heard,
the boy said he was being maltreated and
tried to escape from his parents. He thought
he was on his way to the US.
"The parents have travelled to Lagos by
road, to get him back."
Meanwhile, investigations conducted by one
of our correspondents in Lagos revealed
that the boy had been handed over to the
operatives of the State Security Services for
further investigation.
The General Manager, Corporate
Communications, Federal Airports Authority
of Nigeria, Mr. Yakubu Dati, who also
confirmed the development, said the
aviation security personnel of the agency
had handed over the young voyager to the
men of the SSS for extensive investigation.
Dati said, "The residential address the boy
gave to us was traced to a church in Benin
by our airport manager and his team. So,
there is need to hand over the teenager to
the SSS who are experts in such
investigations. They will carry out further
investigation on the matter."
The FAAN spokesman said the nature and
circumstances surrounding the crime
informed the agency decision to hand over
the stowaway to the SSS operatives.
Meanwhile, following the Benin Airport
incident, FAAN has adopted the 'risk
amelioration processes to safeguard flight
operations' at all its 22 airports across the
country.
Dati stressed that the agency had tightened
its risk amelioration procedure to ensure
that similar incident did not occur again.
He also said the agency had prioritised the
perimeter fencing of all the 22 airports in
the country.
"In the meantime, we have adopted risk
amelioration processes to safeguard flight
operations. As a result of this incident in
Benin, we have further tightened our risk
amelioration procedure to ensure that a
similar incident does not occur," he said.
However, FAAN has also continued to trade
blame with Arik Air over the Benin incident.
The agency, in a statement on Sunday, said it
read with "great dismay the statement
released by Arik Airlines about the
stowaway found on board Arik's flight 544
from Benin to Lagos on Saturday 24 August,
2013."
Dati said FAAN was "unfairly indicted" while
the airline took no responsibility whatsoever
for such a "serious security breach."
FAAN said its preliminary investigation had
revealed that Arik did not give accurate
account of the Benin Airport incident.
Giving the accounts of its preliminary
findings, FAAN said, "Our investigations
reveal that a passenger on board the flight
called the attention of the cabin crew while
the aircraft was waiting to take off at the
threshold of the runway, to the effect that
they had seen a young boy walk under the
aircraft and had not seen him re-appear on
the other side."
"The cabin crew in turn informed the pilots
in the cockpit about this. The pilots called
the control tower and asked them to
request FAAN to do a sweep of the area
after their departure, opting to carry on
with their flight despite the report."
"Upon the arrival of the aircraft in Lagos, we
were informed that there had been a
stowaway found alive alighting from the
wheel well of the aircraft. While FAAN takes
this security breach extremely seriously, we
deem Arik's attempt at indicting and
smearing FAAN as irresponsible. Safety and
security breaches occur when all the checks
in the system are beaten. Given that security
is a responsibility for all players in this
industry, a critical last opportunity to detect
and prevent this stowaway was offered and
had the airline taken the information by
passengers as seriously as they should have,
this incident would have been avoided."

source: punch