With Google's Advice, Boy, 9, Slips Onto Cross-Country Flight

Young sneak was returned safely after 1,677-mile trip in Brazil
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 5, 2022 4:55 PM CST
With Google's Advice, Boy, 9, Slips Onto Cross-Country Flight
Guarulhos, Brazil, from the air.   (Getty/rodrigobark)

Assuming his parents would be no help, a 9-year-old boy in Brazil turned to Google and searched for "how to get onto a plane unnoticed." Then he did it, winding up 1,677 miles from his hometown of Manaus after a flight to Guarulhos, the Mirror reports. Emanuel Marques de Oliveira had managed to board an airliner without a ticket, documentation, or luggage. The boy was found, unharmed, on the other side of the country and returned home. But he'd already given his parents a fright. His mother reported him missing last Saturday.

"I woke up at 5:30am, went to his room, and saw that he was sleeping normally," said his mother, Daniele Marques. She got up again at 7:30, she said, "and that is when I realized that he was no longer in his bedroom, and I started to panic." Marques spent the day worrying and waiting for news from police. The airline, LATAM, said in a statement that he was spotted on the flight and taken to a shelter after landing to await his return, per the India Times. Emanuel was flown back to Manaus the next day, where he was "welcomed by local authorities" and his parents.

Investigations by police, the airline, and the Manaus airport have begun. Police said there's nothing concerning about Emanuel's home life, he just wanted to see relatives. He had no help other than Google's, they said. It wasn't known whether Emanuel had searched for "how to scare your parents half to death." (A 15-year-old stowaway once survived hiding in a plane's wheel well.)

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