Avalon Airport: alleged teen hijacker faces more charges

Four commonwealth charges have been laid against the teenager who allegedly boarded a Jetstar flight at Avalon Airport armed with a shotgun. There are a total of 16 charges.

The teenager is held by a passenger and a pilot. Picture: 9NEWS

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Four commonwealth charges have been laid against the teenager who allegedly boarded a Jetstar flight at Avalon Airport in Victoria armed with a shotgun, including compromising the safe operation of an aircraft with an “intent to kill”.

A court on Friday ruled the identity of any “foreigner or foreign entities” linked to the 17-year-old boy would remain secret or else risk impeding a national security investigation.

About 160 passengers were on the flight bound for Sydney on March 6 when the boy allegedly boarded the plane while in possession of a firearm and claimed he had bombs in his bag.

Victoria Police have confirmed officers charged the boy with four additional commonwealth offences, including prejudicing the safe operation of an aircraft with the intent to kill, an attempted hijack, assaulting a member of an airline crew and prejudicing the safe ­operation of an aircraft.

The boy, who is from the Ballarat region but cannot be named for legal reasons, has been charged with a total of 16 offences in relation to the incident.

In the Children’s Court on Friday, judge Jack Vandersteen ruled in favour of an Australian Federal Police application to extend and expand an existing suppression order on the matter.

The court heard the order, which expires on June 13, was required to prevent impeding an ­investigation by the joint counter-terrorism team as to whether the incident had any connection to other national security investigations.

Judge Vandersteen concluded that based on the evidence before him, which included a confidential affidavit from a senior AFP ­officer, making the order was “in the interests of Australia’s national security” and “necessary to prevent a real and substantial risk of prejudice to the proper administration of justice”.

The order prevents media outlets from publishing any information they obtain, whether from the court case or by other means, relating to “the identity of (or anything that might tend to identify) any foreigner or foreign entities that the accused has communicated with, or with whom the ­accused attempted to or intended to communicate, in connection with the events of 6 March 2025 that resulted in his arrest”.

The media is also prohibited from publishing information relating to “the nature or content of any such communication or ­attempted/­intended communication” and the “nature or content of any documents found in the ­vehicle used by the accused in connection with the events of 6 March 2025.”

Police believe the boy evaded security on March 6 by entering Avalon Airport through a hole in the fence, before he allegedly boarded the plane with the “intent to prejudice the safe operation of an aircraft”.

Charge sheets show it is ­alleged he said “I’ve got bombs in my bag”, from which police allege “it could reasonably be inferred that it is his intention to destroy, damage or endanger the safety of the aircraft or to kill or injure all or any of the persons on board the aircraft”.

Police allege the boy had earlier that day stolen two 12-gauge shotguns and a rifle from Tour­ello, a western Victorian town ­approximately an hour and a half from Avalon Airport.

Other charges include unlawfully taking control of an aircraft, endangering the safety of an aircraft, possessing dangerous goods on an aircraft, placing at Avalon “a faux homemade explosive”, possessing firearms, possessing a controlled weapon and a traffic offence.

The matter will return to court on April 16.