Kicker: Cleared for takeoff

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

NICK EICHER, HOST: A five-year-old boy in Colorado just conducted his first airline audit. Five years old! William Hines loves airplanes.

So when a family friend gave him a Southwest Airlines pilot training manual, he didn’t just flip through it.

He studied it.

And he spotted what looked like a discrepancy — two terrain graphics that didn’t quite match up.

So he told a grown-up. The note made its way up.

Eventually landing on the desk of the CEO.

Southwest says there wasn’t actually an error — just different zoom settings on those graphics.

But that wasn’t ultimately the point. The kid was impressive.

So Southwest invited William and his family to Dallas for a VIP tour of headquarters.

The youngster even got in the simulator and sat in the captain’s seat.

Five years old, and already cleared for takeoff.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

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