Criminal charges were filed by Federal Prosecutors against a man who climbed into a crate and had himself shipped by air from New York to Dallas to visit his parents.

Charles D. McKinley was charged with stowing away on a cargo jet.

McKinley, a 25-year-old shipping clerk at a New York warehouse, journeyed overnight about 1,500 miles by truck, plane and delivery van before startling his parents by popping out of the box at their home.

A driver for Pilot Air Freight, picked up the crate at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and delivered it to McKinley's parents' home in suburban DeSoto.

When the driver went to unload the 350-pound crate from his truck, he saw a pair of eyes and thought there was a body inside.

Then McKinley broke the box open and crawled out, said police Lt. Brian Windham.

McKinley's mother was stunned. The delivery driver called police.

McKinley's escapade occurred as Americans prepared to mark the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and it renewed debate over the air cargo system's vulnerability to terrorists.

"It certainly shows that we have more work to do on cargo security," Asa Hutchinson, the Homeland Security Department's undersecretary for transportation security, told ABC.

Federal officials were puzzled how McKinley got past airport security at several points, and investigators with the Transportation Security Administration interviewed him in jail.

McKinley said he was homesick and looking for a cheap way to visit his parents when he squeezed himself into the crate. It measured 42 by 36 by 15 inches. He is 5-foot-8 and weighs 170 pounds.

He told the NBS "Today" show that he was "scared and nervous" when he was nailed into the crate.

"This is the dumbest thing and the craziest thing I could ever do within my life," he added. "I was short of cash and truthfully I really should've waited."

McKinley was arrested and jailed on unrelated traffic and bad-check charges after the surprised deliveryman notified police in the Dallas suburb of DeSoto.

A number of companies were involved in handling McKinley's crate. All of them explained they followed security procedures.

UPS picked up the crate at the warehouse where McKinley worked. Pilot Air Freight took the box to Kennedy Airport, then it was trucked to Newark, N.J., and loaded on a Kitty Hawk Cargo plane.

After stops in Niagara Falls, N.Y., and Fort Wayne, Ind., it landed in Dallas, where a deliveryman for Pilot Air Freight took it to the home of McKinley's parents.

The box was carried in pressurized, heated cabins, but could just as easily have been placed in the lower, unpressurized holds, according to Richard G. Phillips, chief executive of Pilot Air Freight.

"He could easily have died," Phillips said.

- September 9, 2003