Police in Australia have charged a teenage boy after he illegally entered an airfield near Melbourne dressed as a maintenance worker and boarded a Jetstar plane carrying a concealed shotgun.
The incident at Avalon Airport, 50 km from Melbourne, ended when the 17-year-old was wrestled to the ground by passengers, who spotted the gun protruding from a worker’s tool bag carried by the boy.
The boy had entered the tarmac by forcing his way through a perimeter fence.
There were 160 passengers on the plane, which was preparing to take off to Sydney.
One passenger, a former sheep shearer and boxer, said he noticed the barrel of a shotgun while the boy was speaking with a flight attendant.
“I thought to myself, that ain’t a tool that should be on a plane.”
The man wrestled the boy to the floor, helped by other passengers and the aircraft’s flight crew.
Investigators are working with the police counter-terrorism command and Australian Federal Police to establish the boy’s motives in boarding the plane while carrying a gun. They believe the boy was acting alone.