OSAKA -- A man dressed as an All Nippon Airways Co. (ANA) mechanic has sneaked into a high security Osaka Itami Airport hangar, police said Thursday.
The mysterious man cycled away when an ANA official spotted him and inquired as to his identity Wednesday night. As an unsuspecting airport guard posted at a gate some 500 meters from the hanger let him pass through, he remains on the lam.
"I've heard that stewardesses' uniforms are exchanging hands at high prices among people with special tastes, but as far as I know, I don't think the same is true for mechanic's garments," a spokesman for ANA's Itami airport branch said.
However, Osaka branch officials of the Transport Ministry's Civil Aviation Bureau said the matter is a serious concern. "Since the 9.11 terrorist attacks in the United States our airports have been maintaining the highest state of security alert. We've never heard of anyone disguised as a mechanic trespassing into a hangar before."
Police said the man was sitting on top of a stepladder, with his upper body buried inside a Boeing 747 through an access door at the bottom of the plane when a real ANA mechanic spotted him at around 9 p.m.
When the ANA mechanic asked who he was, the man, who was aged between 20 and 30 and was about 165-centimeter tall, rushed down the ladder, jumped on a bike parked nearby and fled.
The mechanic told police that the man's costume and a bag he was carrying looked like genuine ANA service products.
Since there was a possibility that the man had fiddled with the plane, ANA and Transport Ministry experts carried out a thorough check of the jumbo jet but did not detect any sign of sabotage, although they found that a stewardess' apron was missing.
The ANA jet flew to Sapporo Thursday morning on schedule.
Police are hunting the man on suspicion of breaking the Aviation Law. (Mainichi Shimbun, Dec. 12, 2002)
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