9-year-old boy manages to board flight to Las Vegas alone and without boarding pass

A nine-year-old boy managed to board a Delta Airlines flight to Las Vegas alone and without a boarding pass Thursday morning.

The child arrived at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Thursday and was screened by TSA officials before boarding flight 1651 from Minneapolis to Las Vegas.

Crewmembers on the flight became suspicious of the unaccompanied child while on the flight and contacted authorities. He was turned over to Child Protective Services once the flight arrived in Nevada.

"The fact that the child's actions weren't detected until he was in flight is concerning," said the airport spokesman Patrick Hogan, ABC reports. More than 33 million people travel through Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport every year, and I don't know of another instance in my 13 years at the airport in which anything similar has happened. Fortunately, the flight crew took appropriate actions to ensure the child's safety, so the story does have a good ending.

According to Fox, authorities called the boy “street smart” because he was able to get that far without being caught.

The Transportation Security Administration is investigating the incident.