Girl walks off from parents in Geneva to nearby railway station and boards flight to Corsica before being noticed by crew

Swiss officials are investigating how a seven-year-old runaway who slipped away from her parents was able to pass through airport security controls and sneak on to flight without a ticket or passport.

Geneva airport denied its security measures had been breached.

The girl’s father called police on Sunday lunchtime to report that his daughter had disappeared as they were walking in the centre of Geneva. As police searched the surrounding area, CCTV later revealed the child had walked to the nearby Gare Cornavin, the city’s main railway station, where she boarded a train for the airport.

One stop and eight minutes later, she arrived at the terminal and strolled calmly through security checks in the French sector after staff assumed she was with other adult passengers.

The girl, who was wearing a blue jacket, first tried to follow airline crew through a gate to an Air France flight before being turned back. Airport staff say she then “bypassed the usual path by slipping into a passage accessible only to a child” of her size to board an easyJet flight to Corsica.



The crew spotted her on the plane before it took off for Ajaccio and alerted the authorities.



Bertrand Stämpfli, a spokesman for Geneva airport, described the incident as “extremely regrettable”. He said passport control was not obligatory in the European Schengen area, and that the girl had gone through security checks by “taking advantage of her small size” to pretend to be with adults.

“There was no breach in Geneva airport’s security regulations,” he told La Tribune de Genève. “Videos show that during the busy weekend period she was not asked to show her plane ticket. She apparently managed to give the impression she was with adults who were passing [the checks] in front or behind her,” he said.

The airport community had now mobilised to close loopholes “that could be exploited by young children”, he added.



“It’s not a question of pointing the finger of blame at anyone in this incident … We must take collective responsibility. We must acknowledge that the current system is efficient for adults and accompanied children but that it must take better account of the weaknesses that could let a child slip through, as this unprecedented and regrettable incident has shown.”



In a statement, easyJet acknowledged that an unaccompanied child had boarded flight EZS1305 from Geneva to Ajaccio, and said it had begun an investigation. “The crew correctly identified the child should not be on board and immediately reported it to the police,” it said.

“We have taken this up with Geneva airport and an investigation has been launched. easyJet works closely with all of our airports to ensure the safety and security of all passengers and staff. The safety and well-being of our passengers and crew is always easyJet’s number one priority.”

Silvain Guillaume-Gentil, a spokesman for Geneva police, confirmed that the family lived in Geneva but said the reason the girl ran off was not clear.