Trying to get home after exams? Do you live far away? Are you short on cash?

Well, there is no need to worry because there is a new, free way to travel hundreds of miles without experiencing the perils of conventional transportation. Just sneak into the wheel well of an airplane! Nobody will even notice. In fact, a 16-year-old boy just traveled from California to Hawaii Sunday night using the wheel-well method. 

All you have to do is survive cold temperatures at 38,000 feet in the air and a lack of oxygen. 

The boy from Santa Clara, Calif. is “lucky to be alive,” according to FBI spokesman Tom Simon. 

Security footage from the San Jose Airport showed that the boy hopped a fence to hitch a ride in the wheel well of Hawaiian Airlines Flight 45 for the duration of the five-and-a-half-hour flight.

But the scary thing about this whole situation is that he was just a kid running away from a fight he had with his parents. 

If a 16-year-old kid can get into the wheel well of a plane, who is to say that someone who wants to harm the plane or the people inside can’t do the same? That boy could have easily had a bomb in his backpack. Innocent people could have died because of a careless airport staff. 

Not to mention that the boy could have easily died. The boy was unconscious for most of the trip and was disoriented when he got out of the wheel well, according to The Associated Press. 

He is old enough to have known better, but he is still a kid, and the airport staff should not have allowed this to happen. 

I understand that everybody makes mistakes and not every day can be one’s best, but securing an airport is a serious job not to be taken lightly. 

“I have long been concerned about security at our airport perimeters. #Stowaway teen demonstrates vulnerabilities that need to be addressed,” tweeted Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat who represents the San Francisco Bay Area’s eastern cities and suburbs. 

I was so confused about how such a ridiculous event could have occurred. I figured it was a freak event that had never happened before. 

Well, I was wrong. Several people have stowed away in airplane wheel wells. 

A 16-year-old boy died after stowing away on a flight from Charlotte, N.C. to Boston, Mass. in 2010, and in 2012 a man stowing away in the wheel well of a flight from Angola fell onto a London street as the flight began its descent, according to AP. More recently, a 13- or 14-year-old boy in Nigeria survived a wheel-well trip on a 35-minute domestic flight in August. 

With all of the technologically advanced airport security that we have today, one would think preventing stowaways wouldn’t be a problem, and it shouldn’t be, but I guess all the technology in the world can’t make everyone have common sense. Regardless, airports should up their security for fear that a similar situation could result in multiple deaths or injuries.

Send your thoughts to Taylor at technician-viewpoint@ncsu.edu.