The 15-year-old California boy who survived a harrowing San Jose-to-Maui flight in a jetliner’s wheel well remains at a Honolulu children’s hospital while child-welfare officials work on the details of getting him back to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Meanwhile, an array of news crews Tuesday descended on the teen’s Santa Clara home and high school to get some glimpse into the youth who lived through a feat that the Federal Aviation Administration says has a 76 percent death rate, and who is perhaps the only person in recorded history to emerge unscathed.
The boy, whose name has not been publicly released, attends Santa Clara High School, according to schoolmates. An email sent Tuesday morning to school staff stated he transferred to the Santa Clara Unified School District five weeks ago, has been in the U.S. for about four years and speaks English as a second language.
"The district is in contact with his family and authorities so that when he returns to school, he will be able to get the services he needs," said Santa Clara High Principal Gregory Shelby, who referred additional questions to the district.
At the boy’s Forbes Avenue home Tuesday morning, neighbors said the family has lived in the house about six months and that a yellow cab and gray van usually occupy the driveway. Neither was present Tuesday.
Although it appeared someone was peeking through the blinds, no one answered the door.
Manish Saini, a neighbor, described the family as "normal and nice." He said he did not realize the stowaway was his neighbor until news crews began parking on his street.
News outlets reported Tuesday that the boy was trying to travel to Africa to reunite with his mother after running away due to discord with his father. The FBI says the boy did not intentionally head to Hawaii, and got into the first plane he saw — a Hawaiian Airlines Boeing 767 — after scaling a fence at Mineta San Jose International Airport. A Maui news report attributed the Africa destination to local police, who first responded after the boy emerged from the plane’s wheel well. Officials with Maui police would not confirm the report.
The boy spent seven hours undetected in what is supposed to be a highly secure area of San Jose International Airport before the flight departed, according to an official briefed on the investigation.
The law enforcement official told the Associated Press on Tuesday that video surveillance shows the boy on the airfield a little after 1 a.m. Sunday, walking on the tarmac and near airplanes in fenced and guarded areas. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.
While it’s not clear how the teen spent all that time, FBI spokesman Tom Simon in Honolulu said the teen was sleeping in the plane before the 8 a.m. PDT takeoff. He "literally just slept on the plane overnight," Simon said.
High altitude and low temperatures knocked him out during the 51⁄2-hour flight; he didn’t regain consciousness until an hour after the plane landed in Hawaii, Simon said. Medical experts have said the boy may have survived the subzero temperatures and thin air of the plane’s 38,000-foot cruising altitude because his body went into a hibernationlike state.
The state Department of Human Services said child welfare officials were arranging the teen’s safe return to Northern California.
Meanwhile, investigators were struggling to find out how the San Jose airport’s post-9/11 security could have been so easily breached.
