http://news.aol.com/story/_a/runaway-gets-on-flight-without-problem/20070821172309990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
Aug. 21) - An Alaska mom is asking one airline to reconsider its policy after her 15-year-old daughter bought a ticket and boarded a plane without ever being asked to show her ID. The girl hadn't asked her parents' permission to fly.
Brian and Elise Pringle say they have a good relationship with their daughter. They asked that she remain anonymous because of her age.
"We have a typical American family relationship," said Elise. "The night before this took place, the exact night before, her and my other children were all sitting on the floor playing Life & a board game!"
The next morning, though, Elise and Brian woke to find that the 15-year-old had vanished.
"How can this happen? We're shocked because we didn't expect that would happen to our family," Elise said.
The Pringles live in the picturesque, remote town of Juneau, Alaska, and say their fun-loving teenager enjoys making friends and spending time online.
"I let her have a MySpace because almost every other kid does," Elise said.
But the Pringles said they closely monitored their daughter and made her share her password. Elise even got her own page to link to her daughter's so she could check in.
"We've tried very hard to be open with our daughter and respect her needs and boundaries, but still be responsible parents," Brian said.
The cautious parents still had no idea their daughter was stealing money from them and planning to run away to North Carolina with a high school boy she met online.
"She went to the airline, and at that point in time purchased her ticket in denominations of ones and fives at the actual ticket counter," Elise said. "I was flabbergasted because she looks 15 years old, she is 15 years old. I would think that they would have said, 'Let me call your mommy or your daddy and see if this is OK.'"
Should Airline Share Responsibility?
But no one stopped the teen at the ticket counter or asked for ID when she boarded an Alaska Airlines flight. That's because the Transportation Security Administration only requires passengers older than 18 years old to show a photo ID.
In a statement to "Good Morning America," the TSA said: "The passenger in question was appropriately screened and posed no security threat."
The TSA added that the teen would only have been stopped if an Amber Alert had been issued.
One veteran law enforcement official, however, believes the 15-year-old traveling girl alone should have raised some flags.
"A 15-year-old walking up to a window and having cash and having no ID should set off bells with the airline to further check this out," said Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent.
Individual airlines set their own policies for unaccompanied minors and Alaska Airlines allows children older than 13 to travel by themselves.
"Like many forms of public transportation, there is not an age requirement to purchase an airline ticket," the airline said in a statement.
"The first person that we need to question is whatever airline it is that takes money for a service. They've got to have some responsibility," Brian said.
The Pringles' plight is reminiscent of another story about a teen girl Katherine Lester, who fled to the Middle East to meet a man she'd met on MySpace.
Lester appeared on "Good Morning America" after the FBI tracked her down in Jordan and said she left because she was in love.
"I love him very much," Lester said. "I feel bad that I hurt my family, but I wanted to go see him."
In the Pringles' situation, authorities in Seattle were able to intercept their daughter.
Once they bought her a ticket home, her parents made the agonizing decision to press charges against her for theft. Since Friday, she's been held at a youth detention center.
"It's probably the hardest thing that we've had to do as parents," Elise said. "We love our daughter very much and we're pressing charges because we want to help her."
Her father said it was a form of tough love.
"We want to send her the right message that it really does matter if you do things like this," he said.
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