Airport surveillance camera captures stowaway teen stumbling around plane after landing

NBC News/Screenshot

Airport surveillance camera captures stowaway teen stumbling around plane after landing
(Image credit: NBC News/Screenshot)

Newly released surveillance video of the California teen who miraculously survived a five and a half hour flight from San Jose to Hawaii in a plane's landing gear shows the boy stumbling around shortly after the jet landed last month.

In a six-minute clip from a camera pointed at the runway of Kahului Airport in Maui, 15-year-old Yahya Abdi can be seen wobbling around the Hawaiian Airlines jet before moving out of view. He later reappears and approaches an employee wearing a yellow vest, per NBC News. The video, which was recorded the morning of April 20, matches the airport officer's first statement that mentioned an unidentified "juvenile male" who was "walking on the tarmac."

The boy, who finally returned to California over the weekend, told officers he missed his mother in Somalia and boarded a plane to reunite with her. The ordeal still isn't over for Abdi as San Jose Police are investigating a possible trespassing charge. However, they want to interview him first. -- Jordan Valinsky

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Jordan Valinsky is the lead writer for Speed Reads. Before joining The Week, he wrote for New York Observer's tech blog, Betabeat, and tracked the intersection between popular culture and the internet for The Daily Dot. He graduated with a degree in online journalism from Ohio University.