Smugglers hiding in airplane landing gear survive long flights

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Jinwook Kang = A man who tried to smuggle a flight from Africa to Europe while hiding in the storage space of an airplane’s landing gear was found alive, the BBC reported on the 23rd (local time).

The man was hiding in a cargo plane landing gear storage room from Johannesburg, the capital of South Africa and arriving at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the Netherlands that day.

This is a very rare case, given that the oxygen concentration and air temperature are very low at flight altitude, making it difficult for humans to survive, the BBC said.

The plane he was hanging on belongs to the Italian subsidiary of Cargolux, a cargo-only airline in Luxembourg.

It has not been confirmed whether the man entered the storage room through the landing gear from the time the plane departed from Johannesburg or got on the bus midway at Nairobi Airport.

The nationality or age of the man is also unknown, a spokesman for the Dutch police said in an interview with AFP news agency.

According to Dutch broadcaster NOS, the man’s body temperature soon returned to normal, and when an ambulance arrived, he was able to speak to some extent.

kjw@yna.co.kr

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