Federal authorities and Virgin America are trying to explain how Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi was able to get through layers of airport security and then avoid arrest for five days after officials discovered he was a stowaway.
Virgin America Flight 415 from New York to Los Angeles was already two hours into its journey when some passengers in the upscale "Main Cabin Select" section complained that the man seated in 3E reeked of body odor.
A flight attendant asked Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi for his boarding pass and was surprised to see it was from a different fight and in someone else's name. She alerted authorities, and Noibi went back to sleep in his black leather airline seat. When the plane landed, authorities chose not to arrest Noibi, allowing him to leave the airport.
On Wednesday, Noibi was arrested trying to board a Delta flight out of Los Angeles. Once again, he had managed to pass undetected through security with an expired ticket issued in someone else's name. Authorities found at least 10 other boarding passes, none of which belonged to him. Law enforcement sources told The Times they suspect Noibi has used expired plane tickets to sneak on to flights in the past. On his website, Noibi describes himself as a "frequent traveler."
Now, federal authorities and Virgin America are trying to explain how the Nigerian American was able to get through layers of security and then avoid arrest for five days after officials discovered he was a stowaway.
Aviation safety experts said they see several major breakdowns in security procedures. Transportation Security Administration and airline officials should have noticed the ticket was expired and not in Noibi's name when he boarded at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, they said. He was allowed onboard by showing his expired university ID card, even though college identification cards are not on the TSA's list of valid IDs and federal transportation sources said that it alone should not have been accepted.
The experts were also perplexed at why officials allowed Noibi to leave LAX after the plane landed when he had clearly violated laws.
"Obviously the system did not work the way it was supposed to," said Brian Jenkins, a transportation security expert at the Mineta Transportation Institute in San Jose and the Rand Corp., the Santa Monica-based think tank. "Procedure was not followed."
The incident is another black eye for airport security officials, who are still dealing with the publicity surrounding the TSA's decision last week to force a 95-year-old woman in a wheelchair to take off her adult diaper when she went through a security check in Florida.
TSA officials said Thursday it was reviewing Noibi's case. But Virgin America acknowledged in a statement that its workers "may have missed an alert" in processing Noibi in New York.
"The airline maintains security and other screening systems [are] in place to prevent such an occurrence; however, in this case it appears staff may have missed an alert when the passenger presented a boarding pass from a prior flight," said Virgin America spokeswoman Patricia Condon. "We take security matters very seriously and are reviewing our training to ensure that this anomaly does not occur again."
The saga began June 24, when Noibi got on the plane at JFK.
Noibi was not on the list of passengers for the flight, which would be mandatory "for each paying passenger on every U.S. domestic flight," wrote Special Agent Kevin R. Hogg in an FBI affidavit. Virgin had no record of Noibi paying for his ticket.
Despite this, he was able to move past two checkpoints at the security screening area and at the gate with his expired ticket and university ID.
Investigators later determined the boarding pass belonged to a man identified in the affidavit only as "M.D."
The man told authorities he printed his boarding pass at home, folded it up and put it in his back pocket. But when he arrived at JFK after taking the subway, he couldn't find it. He said he did not know Noibi and printed a replacement boarding pass.
When the flight attendant approached Noibi two hours into the twin-jet Airbus A320 flight, Noibi produced a boarding pass for the day before. The attendant alerted Capt. Joseph Groff, who directed her to seek additional identification, according to the affidavit. Noibi initially hesitated but then produced a student ID from the University of Michigan. Noibi attended as an undergraduate student between 2006 and 2008, the college confirmed.
Groff noted that the names did not match, and the crew alerted authorities on the ground.
The crew kept the subject who was asleep for much of the flight under surveillance, but at no time felt there was any threat to the security of the flight, Condon said.
The five-hour, 23-minute flight landed in Los Angeles at 12:53 a.m. Saturday. Waiting officers let Noibi go after questioning him, and it's unclear how he spent his time in Southern California. But he returned to LAX on Tuesday, passed through security screening and waited for hours at the airport.
When he tried to board Delta Airlines Flight 46 to Atlanta using the expired ticket, authorities took him into custody Wednesday morning.
He tried to persuade Delta officials to let him on the plane, saying he had missed his flight the previous day. "The Delta agent told Noibi 'no' twice, and Noibi kept trying to hand her the boarding pass," the affidavit said.
Noibi, also known as Seun Noibi, proclaims himself a "storyteller, strategist and designer who is passionate about reaching the world for Jesus," according to his Facebook page. He was arrested in Chicago in 2008 after allegedly refusing to pay a $4.70 fare on a Metra train. Those charges were later dropped.
Noibi faces stowaway charges and is scheduled to appear in federal court Friday.
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Also:
Airline stowaway suspect once arrested for not paying train fare
The Nigerian national arrested after allegedly sneaking aboard a New York-to-Los Angeles flight has a history of not paying for his transportation, court records show.
Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi, 24, was arrested in Chicago in 2008 after he allegedly refused to pay a $4.70 fare on a Metra train, according to court records. Noibi got on the train in Lockport, Ill., and when asked several times by the conductor to pay for a ticket, he refused, according to a police report. He was taken into custody when the train reached Union Station in Chicago and was charged with misdemeanor theft. That charge was dropped about six months later.
The report lists Noibi as a University of Michigan student and his birthplace as Iowa. It indicates that he had an Illinois driver's license, a U.S. passport and a Social Security number.
Federal authorities told The Times they suspect that the incident involving the recent Virgin America flight to Los Angeles was not the first time Noibi has flown for free.
The FBI agent who took him into custody said in an affidavit that a search of Noibi's bag found at least 10 different boarding passes and that none were in his name. It was unclear whether those passes were with him when he was initially interviewed after he landed in Los Angeles.
Noibi acknowledged sneaking aboard the Virgin America flight in New York on June 24, officials said. The flight crew discovered Noibi midway through the flight, which landed in the early morning hours of June 25. He was questioned at that time, but was not taken into custody or arrested.
A few days later, on Tuesday, Noibi returned to LAX, where he was again able to get past security without a valid boarding pass, officials said. Authorities said he spent the night at the airport and when he tried to board a Delta flight to Atlanta, he was stopped at the gate when an airline employee told him he could not board the plane.
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Security theater indeed.
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