From Africa to Amsterdam
Stowaway survives multi-hour flight in jumbo cargo bay
Cargolux is one of the major European air freight companies and owns a fleet of 30 Boeing 744 and 747-8 jumbos.
In freezing temperatures and at an altitude of more than 10,000 meters, a man has endured the landing gear bay of a wide-bodied aircraft. It is still unclear where the person got onto the runway and boarded the plane. The Boeing 747 initially took off from Johannesburg.
A stowaway survived a multi-hour flight from Africa in the landing gear door of a cargo plane’s nose wheel. The man was discovered by Dutch security forces at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Sunday afternoon.
“First of all, it is important that the man recovers. The case will be handed over to the immigration authorities,” a military police spokesman told radio station NH Nieuws. “It is very unusual for anyone to have survived the cold at such an altitude – very, very unusual.”
The condition of the man is according to the circumstances good. He had to be admitted to a hospital. The Cargolux flight with the abbreviation CV7156 initially took off on Saturday at around 7.30 p.m. local time in Johannesburg, South Africa. After a stopover in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, the Boeing 744-400 completed the route to Amsterdam in 8 hours and 6 minutes.
It is initially unclear whether the person got into the landing gear bay in Johannesburg or Nairobi. He was hypothermic when he was found. So far, no information has been given on the nationality and the exact age of the man.
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Again and again people try to travel as stowaways in the landing gear bay of airplanes. The attempts usually end fatally. Many fall to the ground as they land, others lose consciousness and die of hypoxia and hypothermia.
It was not until early December 2021 that a 26-year-old man survived in the landing gear bay of a Boeing 737 on the two-and-a-half-hour flight from Guatemala to Miami. According to the US Federal Aviation Administration, more than 80 percent of people who try to enter the United States in this way die.
Sources: www.nhnieuws.nl, www.airlive.net, www.flightradar24.com
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