TSA, airline admit blame for stowaway

Officials with the Transportation Security Administration and Virgin America Airlines admitted Thursday that their agents failed to catch a passenger without a valid boarding pass who flew from Kennedy Airport to Los Angeles last week.

The man, Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi, 24, who has an Illinois driver's license but claimed to live in Atlanta, is a U.S. citizen who also holds a Nigerian passport, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said. Authorities said Noibi has no obvious ties to any known terrorist organization, though Eimiller said the investigation into his background is ongoing.

Noibi was charged by federal prosecutors with being a stowaway. His initial court appearance is scheduled Friday in federal court in Los Angeles. If convicted of the stowaway charge, he faces up to 5 years in prison.

He was taken into custody Wednesday after he presented another invalid boarding pass to a Delta Air Lines ticket agent at Los Angeles International Airport for a flight to Atlanta, the agency said. A subsequent search of his luggage, to which he had consented, yielded more than 10 additional boarding passes in other individuals' names, an FBI affidavit said.

The FBI affidavit states Noibi acknowledged he had not paid for the June 24 Virgin America flight. He said he went to Los Angeles to try to recruit people to work for his software business, the affidavit says.

Regarding the Delta flight, Noibi said he had tried to get a Tuesday flight to Atlanta, but " 'they' could not get him on that flight," the affidavit says. He said he had a reservation for Wednesday, and that he had spent Tuesday night in the airport. He said he had been able to go through passenger screening by getting a seat pass "and displaying his University of Michigan ID and a police report that his passport had been stolen."

"Noibi said that he had no money on him and that he does not know anybody in the Los Angeles area," the affidavit said.

The TSA acknowledged Thursday that a preliminary investigation showed a lapse by its officer who reviewed Noibi's document at Kennedy.

"TSA's initial review of this matter indicates the officer reviewing the passenger's travel documents did not identify that the passenger was traveling with improper travel documents," agency spokesman J. Kawika Riley said in an email.

Disciplinary action is being considered and remedial training is expected. The TSA screens nearly 2 million passengers a day in airports nationwide, Riley said.

Virgin America managers said in a statement that Noibi boarded "holding an invalid boarding pass" to get on Flight 415 at Kennedy last Friday.

"In this case, it appears staff may have missed an alert when the passenger presented a boarding pass from a prior flight," said Patricia Condon, an airline spokeswoman. She called the incident an "anomaly."

Noibi's presence on the flight only became known after two other passengers complained about his body odor, the FBI said. Then the flight crew noticed Noibi was in Seat 3E, which was supposed to be empty.

Upon being questioned, Noibi retrieved the outdated boarding pass from his bag, as well as a University of Michigan identification card that showed his photograph and full name, the FBI said.

Once the nonstop flight landed in Los Angeles, authorities questioned Noibi, found him to be "no threat" to security and released him, Eimiller said. She would not comment on what, if any, investigation was done between Saturday, when Noibi was questioned, and Wednesday, when he was taken into custody.

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, demanded a full probe. He said he is sending a letter to TSA chief John Pistole.

"Was he testing the system?" King said in a telephone interview. "Was this a series of coincidences?

"It would be one thing if he had phony ID, you could somehow understand how he got through security. How he could get through without I.D. that matched up with the boarding pass? And then to get on the plane with the wrong boarding pass? It should never happen."

The affidavit says Noibi informed the arresting agent he was planning to return to Nigeria on July 7 and said he had a valid Nigerian passport "at home." Noibi said he had a reservation on Virgin Atlantic to return to the United States from Nigeria on Sept. 9, the affidavit says.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Noibi proclaims himself a "storyteller, strategist and designer who is passionate about reaching the world for Jesus," according to his Facebook page.

The University of Michigan confirmed Noibi was an undergraduate student from 2004 until fall 2006. Spokeswoman Kelly Cunningham said he is not a current student.

With John Valenti