In a rare incident that took the Chinese airport authorities by surprise, a 13-year-old boy sneaked into a local airport and tried to pilot two aircraft without proper training or expert supervision.
He tiptoed into the airport in the wee hours of the morning and hopped into first one, then another amphibious aircraft. In an attempt to master the flying technique, he crashed one of the amphibious aircrafts worth 1,880,000 yuan (Rs.1.8 lakh approx.) into the guardrail.
Surveillance cameras showed him hopping into another aircraft after crashing the first one and taxiing it round in circles before abandoning the plane and leaving the airfield.
Reportedly, the teenager caused damages worth 8,000 yuan (Rs 80,204 approx.), he remained unharmed. The director of the airport said that the boy must be very clever, as “it is impossible to learn by observation alone”.
According to BBC, the Chinese teenager has been handed a hefty fine after he broke into an airport but was offered a rare opportunity to learn how to fly. So while the airport steps up its security, it has also offered to train the teenager as a pilot.
While this incident raises concern over the airport’s poor security, the boy’s attempt at learning to fly the aircraft landed him with an opportunity to train like a professional. When the police came to fine the boy, he was found doing his homework. They left by giving him a strict verbal warning
The airport authority approached the family to pay for the damage caused but agreed to accept only 2,000 yuan(Rs 20,040 approx.), considering their poor financial condition.
The teenager’s desperate attempt to learn flying shows his keen interest in the profession. The police and airports authorities’ sympathetic gesture of training the boy and making his dream come true is indeed commendable.