DALLAS (AP) - Charles McKinley found a unique way to save a few bucks getting to his parents' house: He crawled into a wooden airplane cargo crate and succeeded in shipping himself from New York to Texas.
After hours of traveling, McKinley, 25, of New York City, pried open the crate with a crowbar Saturday morning. He popped up outside his parents' doorstep in the south Dallas suburb of DeSoto, shook the hand of a shocked deliveryman and walked away.
The deliveryman called DeSoto police, who arrested him on outstanding Texas warrants. The FBI and the Transportation Security Administration are investigating.
McKinley has not yet been charged with a crime, officials said.
``It's amazing that the gentleman survived. It's absolutely a bizarre case,'' said FBI Special Agent Lori Bailey, a spokeswoman for the Dallas field office. ``Our concern at this point is to determine how this was done.''
Officials said McKinley's crate was put aboard a pressurized Boeing 727 from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Fort Wayne, Ind. The crate was transferred to a second plane bound for Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
A ground shipping company picked up the crate and delivered it to the residence of McKinley's parents. McKinley spent at least half a day in the crate and broke out just in time for the deliveryman to see him.
``We sure don't see something like this happen like this every day,'' DeSoto Police Chief Mike Brodnax said.
They should invent a box just for that. It would look like a normal shipping crate on the outside, but it would carry supplies of food, drinks, oxygen, a padded sides, and entertainment. It might not be convienent or comfortable, but it would save you hundreds, depend on how long you can get away with it.
The deliveryman called DeSoto police, who arrested him on outstanding Texas warrants.
Appears he was an outlaw there.~Jason
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
Stormbringer wrote:
Not to mention shipping people (even yourself) as freight is more than a little illegal.
Actually they seem to be investigating into whether he even broke any laws. As it is he's luck to be alive, as many freight aircraft don't have pressurized holds.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Surely they X-ray and search boxes like that, as well...?
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
