Nine-Year-Old Boy Boards Flight Without Ticket

A "smart" nine-year-old boy managed to pass through a security checkpoint at a Minnesota airport and hop on a flight to Las Vegas without a boarding pass, authorities have said. Airport spokesman Patrick Hogan told ABC News that the boy who arrived alone at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Thursday, headed for the airport concourse after been screened by officials - where he boarded an 11:15 a.m. flight on Delta to Sin City.

Hogan said the flight crew became suspicious of the nine-year-old's travel circumstances and called the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, who took the boy into custody upon landing. "The fact that the child's actions weren't detected until he was in flight is concerning," he said. "More than 33 million people travel through Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport every year, and I don't know of another instance in my 13 years at the airport in which anything similar has happened. "Fortunately, the flight crew took appropriate actions to ensure the child's safety, so the story does have a good ending," Hogan said.  "The boy was more worldly than most nine-year-old kids," Las Vegas Metropolitan Police spokesman Bill Cassell told ABC News "He was able to get onto an airline where he didn't have a ticket.," he said. "If it hadn't been for alert airline employees on our end, he probably never would have been discovered."