A man, approximately 20 years old, was discovered on Thursday hiding in the landing gear compartment of a commercial plane that flew from Algeria to Paris.
Despite suffering from severe hypothermia, the man was found alive during technical checks after the Air Algerie flight landed at Orly Airport in Paris.
The man did not have identification. He was alive, but in life-threatening condition due to severe hypothermia and had to be taken to hospital.
Commercial airliners fly at altitudes between 30 and 40 thousand feet, where temperatures can drop to around -58F. Additionally, the lack of oxygen in the landing gear compartment, which is neither heated nor pressurized, makes survival unlikely.
According to data from the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), between 1947 and 2021, 132 attempts to travel in the landing gear compartments of commercial aircraft were recorded. These people, known in the industry as stowaways, have a 77 percent mortality rate.
This incident is not the first of its kind. In April this year, the body of a man was discovered in the landing gear of a plane at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, which had flown from Toronto but had previously taken off from Nigeria.
Additionally, in July 2019, the frozen body of a man fell into a garden in a London suburb, believed to have been in the landing gear compartment of a Kenya Airways plane approaching Heathrow Airport.
TYT Newsroom
