California police investigating stowaway who reached Hawaii: report

By Alex Dobuzinskis (Reuters) - Police in San Jose, California, plan to interview a 15-year-old boy who gained international attention by surviving as a stowaway on a flight to Hawaii, and are looking into why he snuck into the local airport to climb into a Boeing 767, a police spokesman told a TV station on Tuesday. The report came as surveillance video surfaced of the boy from Santa Clara, California, climbing down from the wheel well of the Hawaiian Airlines flight after it landed on April 20 in Maui. In the video, played on television news, the boy staggers around the tarmac in what appears to be a disoriented state. The teenager, who officials say boarded the plane hours earlier at Mineta San Jose International Airport, became one of only a fraction of stowaways to emerge alive after such a treacherous trip. His journey has raised concerns about airport security, after he remained undetected for hours before the jet took off. Last week, Hawaii child welfare officials said the boy had left their state, and the San Jose Mercury News has reported he was back in California and in the custody of social services. A representative for the Santa Clara County social services agency could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. San Jose police spokesman Albert Morales on Tuesday told San Francisco Bay area television station KNTV, an NBC affiliate, they were investigating the stowaway's actions "at minimum" as a case of trespassing. "As it stands right now, we are still trying to make attempts to interview the kid to find out what happened, what his thought process was and to conduct a thorough investigation," Morales told the station. San Jose police last month said city officials were not planning on pursuing criminal charges. San Jose police representatives did not return calls or emails seeking comment on Tuesday. The teenager's Somali immigrant father, Abdilahi Yusuf Abdi, told Voice of America last month that his son, whom he identified as Yahya Abdi, had wanted to return home to Africa. The boy's mother, Ubah Mohamed Abdulle, later spoke to Voice of America from a refugee camp in Ethiopia where she lives, saying she had been separated for years from the boy and her other children and wanted to be reunited with them in the United States. (Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Prudence Crowther)