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OFFICIALS SAY A 16-year-old boy is “lucky to be alive” and unharmed after flying from California to Hawaii stowed away in a plane’s wheel well, surviving cold temperatures at 38,000 feet and a lack of oxygen.
“Doesn’t even remember the flight,” FBI spokesman Tom Simon in Honolulu told The Associated Press last night. “It’s amazing he survived that.”
The boy was questioned by the FBI after being discovered on the tarmac at the Maui airport Sunday morning with no identification, Simon said.
“Kid’s lucky to be alive,” Simon said.
Simon said security footage from the San Jose airport verified that the boy from Santa Clara, Calif., hopped a fence to get to Hawaiian Airlines Flight 45 yesterday morning.
The child had run away from his family after an argument, Simon said.
Simon said when the Boeing 767 landed in Maui, the boy hopped down from the wheel well and started wandering around the airport grounds.
“He was unconscious for the lion’s share of the flight,” Simon said.
The flight lasted about 5½ hours.
Hawaiian Airlines spokeswoman Alison Croyle said airline personnel noticed the boy on the ramp after the flight arrived and immediately notified airport security.
“Our primary concern now is for the well-being of the boy, who is exceptionally lucky to have survived,” Croyle said.
A photo taken by a Maui News photographer shows the boy sitting upright on a stretcher as authorities get ready to load him into an ambulance.
Simon said the boy was medically screened and found to be unharmed.
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Some neck on these two.
@The Viking: I guess if you were in their situation and facing years in prison we all chance your arm at anything.
The arrogance of these people is hard for me to take. It’s obvious there guilty
@Paul O Riordan: They didn’t offer any real defence in court as they knew it would be ripped apart by the prosecution.
I have to say I was shocked to see the jury members say what they were saying on the TV. I thought there would be some sort of instruction not to speak to the media about their jury duty.
@Paul Mc Nulty: it’s certainly not the way things are done here. But apparently the judge would have needed to issue the jurors with a gag order, which he didn’t.
@Donnachaín Ní Uallacháin: or issue the media with an order not to harass jurors in any trial. The media is at fault here not the jury. Media are supposed to be professional the jurors are lay people not used to dealing with the law or madia outlets.
I just hope the conviction is upheld but if a new trial is called i hope they are convicted of murder 1
I had several issues with the claims of the two. The number of blows, time elapsed before calling for aid, and her rubbing at her neck during police custody. Additionally, if my father were in the position of hers, he would come to my defence with fists, not a bat. He would be up and running, not stopping for a weapon.
@Rathminder: also telling is the fact that he told police that he woke to hear them arguing and stomping around upstairs and he went up with the intention of telling them to ‘knock it off’. Why would he bring a baseball bat to do that? And he was still wearing his watch which is unusual as most people would take their watch off before going to bed. Unless he stopped to put it back on again before going for the baseball bat.
As he is a former member of the FBI, i would have thought he would have been able to commit, cover up and justify the murder in a more professional manner
@Anne Marie Devlin: He may not have been very good at his job. The police said the crime scene was altered.
It was obvious that Molly Martens was told to wear loose-fitting dresses, flat shoes and a ponytail to portray the small, innocent schoolgirl look. They tried to portray Jason Corbett as a big, violent Irish lout. They banked too heavily on the typical Irish stereotype. I think it would have been prudent for the judge to issue a gag order in this case because this pair will stop at nothing. They just can’t accept the fact that they are not above the law.
So two murderers are putting their faith in a technicality to get off.
@Niallers: Unfortunately it is often more thsn enough to get away with murder.
US attorneys go out of their way to tell their clients how to look and act, and pick jurors based on their estimates of their prejudices based on age, gender and background.
When their sociopath clients show no remorse in the courtroom they then complain that the same jurors judged their clients based on prejudice against sociopaths.
As much as I like hearing jurors talk about their cases after the fact, they should have some advice from judges about how to phrase any statements so as not to leave open doors to appeal from public statements.
I don’t think the jurors were swayed by outside influences.
More like the the fact that they were bloody guilty!
have your say