The Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut allowed a 12-year-old child from the Palestinian refugee camp of Burj Al Barajneh to board a Middle East Airlines flight for Istanbul, Turkey marking a significant security breach.
State Commissioner to the Military Court, Judge Saqr Saqr launched an investigation following the crime and five police and General Security personnel were arrested by the authority in connection with the bizarre incident.
The investigation will determine how Khalid Al Shubti slipped from security, boarded the flight, in business class and was only “detected” just before the MEA flight reached its destination. The authorities have charged the airport employees to be too ‘negligent’.
Passengers who fly out from Beirut generally pass through five separate security points, including one before they enter the airport premises and a final examination of their documents by security at the departure lounge, before boarding flights.
The airport’s administration issued a statement that the child sneaked through several checkpoints and managed to board the flight even though he was carrying neither a passport nor a boarding pass. It is not clear from the primary investigations who drove him to the airport or how he managed to avoid immigration queues that stamp documents and allow passengers to enter the duty-free zone. It is speculated that the boy attached himself to a large family, sneaked into the women’s queue and when he noticed that security agents were busy searching travellers, managed to cross several checkpoints.
The cabin crew only came to realise that something was amiss when they conducted a head count just before landing in Turkey, as they found out they had an additional traveller on the plane, who was flown then back to Beirut on the return service.
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