Package deal didn't turn out how stowaway flier expected
Man winds up in jail after arriving in Dallas inside air cargo crate
07:37 AM CDT on Tuesday, September 9, 2003
By DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News
With four weeks of vacation to burn, Charles D. McKinley thought he'd visit his parents in Texas on the cheap.
So with the help of a friend, the shipping clerk from Brooklyn, N.Y., packed himself inside a wooden airplane cargo crate and arrived Saturday morning on his parents' doorstep in DeSoto.
He pried open the crate with a crowbar, shook the hand of a shocked deliveryman and, with a smile, walked away, according to a source familiar with the incident.
Mr. McKinley traveled more than 1,500 miles in two days, undetected by federal security authorities at three airports.
The FBI and Transportation Security Administration are investigating, along with the U.S. attorney's office in Dallas. Mr. McKinley, 25, has not been charged with a crime in the incident. He is being held on unrelated charges at the Dallas County Jail.
Federal officials are still trying to determine whether he violated any laws.
"It's amazing that the gentleman survived. It's absolutely a bizarre case," said FBI Special Agent Lori Bailey, a spokeswoman for the Dallas field office. "Our concern at this point is to determine how this was done."
Unlike the tight federal security for airline passengers, air cargo receives little federal scrutiny. It's primarily the responsibility of the company that ships the freight.
The source close to the investigation said Mr. McKinley broke out of the crate just in time for the deliveryman to see him. Initially, the "shaken and frightened" deliveryman thought Mr. McKinley was dead, having seen two eyes peering out between the crate's wooden slats, the DeSoto police report said.
"If he [Mr. McKinley] would have waited 15 minutes, he would have been fine and he would have been home free," the source said.
The deliveryman called DeSoto police, who arrested Mr. McKinley on outstanding warrants in Garland and Dallas County on charges of theft by check. Police then contacted the FBI.
"We were clueless as to what to do. We sure don't see something like this happen like this every day," DeSoto Police Chief Mike Brodnax said.
Mr. McKinley, who worked as a warehouse employee for the Bronx, N.Y.-based Metro Tech computer company, could not be reached at the jail for comment.
No one answered the door Monday at the DeSoto home where the crate was delivered.
Metro Tech officials could not be reached for comment Monday.
On Friday, a co-worker helped Mr. McKinley package himself inside a wooden crate labeled as computers, monitors and clothing, according to the source familiar with the investigation. The pair then had a cargo forwarding business regularly used by Metro Tech pick up the crate and deliver it to John F. Kennedy International Airport. They charged the crate's shipping costs to Metro Tech, the source said.
The 5-foot-8, 170-pound man traveled in the crate from JFK Airport to Fort Wayne International Airport in Indiana aboard pressurized, climate-controlled Boeing 727s operated by Indiana-based Kitty Hawk Cargo. The cargo company transferred Mr. McKinley's crate to a second plane bound for Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the source said.
The deliveryman, who worked for Pilot Air Freight of Lima, Pa., picked up the crate at D/FW Airport and drove it to Mr. McKinley's parents' house on DeSoto Drive, the source said.
Mr. McKinley gave his own travel tale to DeSoto police, saying he boarded a passenger flight from New York City to Kentucky, where a United Parcel Service pilot helped ship him to D/FW Airport. A UPS spokesman said he was unaware of the incident.
"While this is a very unusual situation, we are fully cooperating with the regulatory agencies, the shipper and other parties handling this investigation," said Kim Wiemuth, a spokeswoman for Kitty Hawk Cargo, in a prepared statement. "The shipment was tendered to us by a known shipper [Pilot Air Freight], which identified a small box as computer equipment. Kitty Hawk Cargo followed all current cargo security procedures."
TSA officials were scheduled to interview Mr. McKinley on Monday, said agency spokeswoman Suzanne Luber, adding that she didn't know whether the interview occurred.
Pilot Air Freight officials could not be reached for comment. The company participates in a federal "known shippers" program, which certifies a client's trustworthiness and safety reputation.
D/FW Airport officials referred inquiries to the TSA.
Many aviation experts consider air cargo shipments the industry's most notable security concern, at least since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In August, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said, "The only hole right now in the system is air cargo. We know from the intelligence we have that ... terrorists look at our air system and they look at the flaws in the system."
But screening air cargo with the same methods as baggage and passengers is next to impossible, said Charlie LeBlanc, vice president of operations for Houston-based Air Security International.
Worldwide, airlines ship billions of tons of freight each year – millions pass through D/FW alone.
"You can't slow the process up with security, because if it took an airline or FedEx or UPS four or five days to get something somewhere, you wouldn't have a business," Mr. LeBlanc said in August.
For all his trouble, Mr. McKinley saved the price of a last-minute, one-way ticket: $320.
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