Napolitano: N.C. airport security failed

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 (UPI) -- U.S. airport security failed when a boy was able sneak onto a tarmac and stow away inside a passenger jet, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.

"Clearly if somebody -- a 16-year-old -- is able to circumvent (U.S. Transportation Security Administration) standards and requirements and get into the wheel well of a plane, there has been a breakdown," Napolitano said at a congressional hearing Wednesday.

She was referring to Delvonte Tisdale, 16, whose body was found in the Boston suburb of Milton, Mass., Nov. 15 after he sneaked onto North Carolina's Charlotte Douglas International Airport tarmac and climbed into the wheel well of a US Airways jet bound for Boston's Logan Airport.

National Counter-terrorism Center Director Michael Leiter said he will work with Napolitano to determine if the United States had broader tarmac-security problems.

U.S. Rep. William Keating, D-Mass., asked Napolitano what might have happened if Tisdale had been "a person with more nefarious motivations."

He asked a similar question Dec. 10 as the Norfolk County, Mass., district attorney investigating Tisdale's death.

"It's a terrible tragedy what happened to this young man, but if that was someone with a different motive -- if that was a terrorist -- that could have been a bomb that was planted, undetected," he said three weeks before taking office on Capitol Hill.

The TSA, the Homeland Security agency responsible for the U.S. traveling public's safety and security, is investigating the incident, Napolitano said.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is also investigating, The Charlotte Observer said.

The family of Tisdale, a high school sophomore who was part of the school's Reserve Officers' Training Corps program, may sue the government, alleging the security system failed, the newspaper said.

"The family of Delvonte deserves answers," attorney Christopher Chestnut told the newspaper. "And the American people deserve answers about such a severe breach of security."