Crate
Escape?
Man mails
himself to Texas
Mr McKinley already faces traffic and bad cheque charges
A man has shipped himself as air cargo from New York to Texas
in a scheme to save money.
Shipping clerk Charles D McKinley, 25, was only discovered when
he arrived on the doorstep of his parents' home in the town of
DeSoto.
Transport officials
are investigating the case amid heightened concern that cargo
flights are a continuing weak spot in US airport security after
11 September.
Mr McKinley
was arrested in Texas for unrelated previous offences but may
also now face charges of stowing away.
CARGO CLASS
Wooden crate measured 106 cm by 91 by 38; Mr McKinley is 1.7 metres
tall Journey took 15 hours during which Mr McKinley reportedly
had neither food nor water Mr McKinley left the crate several
times en route to stretch his legs
Speaking from
his cell, he told local TV he had been feeling homesick and a
friend suggested he could save money by flying as cargo.
Billing the
$550 freight charge to his employer, he climbed into the crate
and managed to travel the journey undetected until a deliveryman
witnessed his emergence at the other end and called the police.
"I'm sitting
there thinking, 'Oh God, I don't know why I'm doing this',"
he recalled.
"I'm sitting
there thinking like any minute somebody will notice that there's
somebody sitting inside this crate. ...No one did."
High-risk ruse
The federal
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has interviewed Mr
McKinley twice to learn how he got past security.
"We're
not aware this has happened previously, so obviously it's something
we are investigating aggressively," said a TSA spokeswoman,
Suzanne Luber.
Air cargo planes
are believed to receive less attention than passenger planes because
of the sheer volume of freight passing through.
"There
are millions of shipments around this country whether it be a
cargo container or a rig or shipping coming into our ports and
the fact of the matter is you cannot open and examine every one
of those," said FBI Director Robert Mueller.
Pilot Air Freight,
the company which carried the unusual cargo, pointed out that,
apart from anything else, Mr McKinley had narrowly escaped death
by having the good fortune to fly in pressurised, heated cabins.
"He could
easily have died," said Richard G Phillips, the company's
chief executive.
And, despite
the risks and discomfort, it wasn't even any cheaper for Mr McKinley
to travel in a box.
For $550, "he
could have flown first-class," Mr Phillips said.
