Pittsburgh Security Chief "Extremely Upset"

For the second time this year, someone apparently walked through the security phalanx at an airport inside the US, found an unlocked aircraft and climbed on board for the night. September 11th or not, someone's asleep at the switch.

It happened over the weekend at Pittsburgh (PA) International Airport (above). Authorities there say 21-year old Louis Esquivel of San Antonio was found by a flight attendant curled up in one of the passenger seats aboard an American Eagle regional jet. He'd apparently been there overnight.

"It raised tremendous alarms for me and, obviously, I'm extremely upset about it," TSA Pittsburgh Chief Robert Blose told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

How'd He Do That?

Esquivel, described by authorities as a paranoid-schizophrenic, was supposed to board a Pittsburgh-San Antonio (TX) flight to be met by relatives in Texas. When he didn't get off the aircraft, his family filed a missing person's report. Back in Pittsburgh, Esquivel, who's now being held on $25,000 bond, told police he walked behind a closed ticket counter, then crawled through the baggage conveyor system to make it out onto the ramp.

Can you do that? "We are putting our people through it to see if it can be done,'' said Ken Fulton, head of the Allegheny County (PA) police.

But that's not the whole story. Police said Esquivel walked across the ramp to a parked van, opened the door, found the keys to the ignition and drove across the airport. Police say he drove up to a gate and boarded the RJ. Blose told the Pittsburgh newspaper surveillance video confirms at least some of the young man's story. The rest is still being checked out.

In January, a mechanic at the Tampa-St. Petersburg (FL) airport noticed a man walking up a portable stairway and onto an unoccupied Boeing 737 in the wee hours of the morning. The man was arrested after the mechanic reported him to airport police.

FMI: www.pitairport.com