11-Year-Old Boy Sneaks Onto Flight to Rome Without Ticket or Passport

With the TSA and their "strict security guidelines," air travel has become more and more difficult. You can't just walk on to a flight and go anymore...or can you?

An 11-year-old boy somehow managed to sneak onto a flight and fly by himself from Manchester, England to Rome, Italy, with no passport, no ticket, and no boarding pass. Now the airport is scrambling to figure out how such a massive blunder could have happened.

Britain's Manchester Airport launched an urgent investigation Wednesday after an 11-year-old boy managed to slip through security and fly to Rome without a passport or ticket.

Liam Corcoran walked through security checks without showing any documentation and successfully boarded a Jet2.com flight to the Italian capital on Tuesday, the airport in north-west England admitted.

He was scanned by security staff but they did not notice his lack of a passport and boarding pass as he mingled with a family boarding the plane, the Manchester Evening News reported.

Passengers noticed halfway through the flight that the boy was alone and alerted the cabin crew.

Not surprisingly, several staff members from both the airline and the airport have been fired as a result of the incident. The boy has since been returned safely to his family.

So you have a gross security oversight at a major airport, just days before your country hosts the biggest sporting event in the world? Yeah...not good. There's already been concerns about security at the London Games, and a story like this does not help matters.