Commercial Pilot Describes How Teen May Have Sneaked Onto Plane

CHARLOTTE, N.C.,None — Investigators revealed Friday a Charlotte teenager may have stowed away on a plane in Charlotte and then fell from a wheel well near Boston last month.

After that announcement, Eyewitness News interviewed an experienced commercial pilot about how Delvonte Tisdale likely sneaked onto that aircraft.

That pilot did not want to reveal his identity, but he said he has nearly two decades of flight experience, and flies in and out of Charlotte-Douglas International Airport more than 10 times a week.

He said Tisdale likely hopped a perimeter fence, ran up to the taxiway, then hopped in the wheel well of the last plane in line for takeoff.

"If the plane were at the gate, there's a lot of people around. There's a plane on either side, there's planes across the way. There are people loading and unloading the plane-- caterers, fuelers, and everyone is in a uniform. They have an ID visible," the pilot said.

"But if he climbed the boundary fence, and was hiding in the bushes in the dark, he would have had to come to a plane in line. And it would have had to be either the only plane waiting to go, or it would have had to be the last plane in line, otherwise another pilot would have seen what was going on," the pilot said.

He said the incident highlights major problems with airport security across the country.

"If it was somebody who had intentions to harm the people on the plane, of course, that could have been catastrophic," he said.

The commerical pilot Eyewitness News interviewed said while security for passengers, and pilots, is intense inside the terminal, there's nothing special about the perimeter fences guarding the planes themselves.

"To my knowledge, they're just your regular chain-link fence. A rather large one. But still, just a normal fence," the pilot said.

He said most major airports have tall fences with a small amount of barbed wire. He said no matter the city, he's never seen cameras, lights or extra security. He said that's something that needs to change.

"More fencing, tougher fencing. Security cameras along the entire boundary, lights along the entire boundary," he said. "If it happened here, it could happen anywhere."

He believes terrorist groups like al-Qaida are now paying close attention to Charlotte. When this kind of story breaks, anywhere in the world, it's something that they'll definitely study, the commercial pilot said. It could have been another disaster that would have been spread over the media all over the world, he said.

By law, all pilots have to do a walk-through and visibly inspect the plane, even the wheel wells. But that walk-through is long completed by the time an aircraft reaches the runway.

WSOC