Girl, 15, flew without parents' OK

JUNEAU, Alaska -- A 15-year-old Juneau girl was allowed to board a jet and fly south to Seattle without her parents' permission.

Elise Pringle says she wants Alaska Airlines and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to reconsider their policies after her daughter left to meet a boyfriend in North Carolina whom she met on the Internet.

Pringle awoke Wednesday and learned her daughter was missing. Nearly a week earlier, the girl had paid cash for a $733 one-way ticket at the Juneau International Airport. On Wednesday, she boarded a plane without identification.

"I thought, unbeknownst, that my child would not only have to have permission, but I thought she would have to have identification at the very least," Pringle said.

According to policies at the airport, children between 13 and 17 may board a plane without identification or parental permission.

"This has been an absolute nightmare, and I didn't believe in my wildest dreams that this could happen," Pringle said.

Alaska Airlines has an "unaccompanied minor service" required for passengers 5 to 12 years old who travel without a guardian, said spokeswoman Amanda Tobin Bielawski. The program requires an escort to the departure gate and guardian contact information. The airline offers the same service for children between 13 to 17 -- if the ticket purchaser requests it.

The ticket agent has the discretion to determine whether a child appears to be in the age group required to participate in the unaccompanied-minor service, Bielawski said.

TSA spokeswoman Jennifer Peppin said airline passengers 18 and older are required to present photo identification before boarding. Travelers 17 and younger need only a boarding pass.

"Our responsibility is through the screening process," Peppin said. "It sounds like the child had a boarding pass, so that would not raise a red flag for us."

Pringle had learned her daughter had purchased a ticket and was trying to leave town. Family members arrived at the airport trying to stop the girl from leaving. Airline employees refused to give them the girl's flight information, she said.

The policies jeopardized her daughter's safety, Pringle said.

After her daughter's flight left Juneau, Pringle contacted Port of Seattle police. She gave them her daughter's social-networking Web site login and password, which provided a recent photograph and more information about the online boyfriend.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport spokesman Perry Cooper said the Port police were able to find the girl at the gate of her connecting flight. They persuaded her to call her mother.

Because the teenager was considered an unreported runaway, police were unable to detain her, Cooper said. However, officers helped persuade her daughter to return to Juneau that evening.

Pringle said she paid about $400 for her daughter's return flight Wednesday night. With the initial ticket, she and her husband are out nearly $1,200, she said.

Pringle said she wants to save her daughter from a life of destructive behavior and has filed theft charges against her. The girl was in juvenile court Friday and was remanded to the Johnson Youth Center, she said.