Man survives flight in plane’s landing gear
A man, who has not been identified, was discovered during technical checks on Thursday in the landing gear compartment of a commercial Air Algerie aircraft that flew into Paris from Oran, Algeria, French authorities said.
The airport source also noted that the person, believed to be in his 20s, “was alive but in a life-threatening condition because of severe hypothermia” after the two-and-a-half-hour flight.
The authorities stated that he had been taken to a nearby hospital in a serious condition, and he didn't have any ID.
Survival is unlikely for anyone traveling in a landing gear compartment as commercial aircraft fly at altitudes 9,000 to 12,000 meters, where temperatures typically drop to around -50 degrees Celsius (-58 Fahrenheit), and there is a lack of oxygen, which leads to severe hypoxia.
A man was found on a plane that flew from South Africa to the Netherlands via Kenya last year. The cargo plane at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport was found to have a passenger, later identified as Kenyan, in the front wheel section.
In July 2019, a man’s frozen body fell into a garden in a London suburb. It was reported to have fallen from a Kenya Airways plane’s landing gear compartment while the flight was approaching Heathrow Airport.
According to the US Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) data, the mortality rate of stowaway passengers on flights between 1947 and 2021 was around 77%.
According to the FAA, 132 individuals have been identified as stowaways who tried to travel in commercial airplane landing gear compartments during this period.
