Teen survives flight in landing gear bay


Honolulu, April 22 (AP)  A 16-year-old boy stowed away in the wheel well of a flight from California to Hawaii, surviving the trip halfway across the Pacific Ocean unharmed despite frigid temperatures at 11,500 metres and a lack of oxygen, FBI and airline officials said.

FBI spokesman Tom Simon in Honolulu told The Associated Press on Sunday night that the boy was questioned after being discovered on the tarmac at the Maui airport with no identification.

“Kid’s lucky to be alive,” Simon said.


Simon said security footage from the San Jose airport verified that the boy hopped a fence to get to Hawaiian Airlines Flight 45 on Sunday morning. The teen had run away from his family after an argument, Simon said. When the flight landed in Maui, the boy hopped down from the wheel well and started wandering the airport grounds.

“He was unconscious for the lion’s share of the flight,” Simon said. The flight lasted about five-and-a-half hours.

Hawaiian Airlines spokeswoman Alison Croyle said airline personnel noticed the boy on the ramp after the flight arrived and immediately notified airport security.

Simon said the boy was medically screened and found to be unharmed. “He doesn’t even remember the flight,” Simon said. “It’s amazing he survived that.”

The boy will not be charged with a crime. In August, a 13 or 14-year-old boy in Nigeria survived a 35-minute trip in the wheel well of a domestic flight after stowing away.

Others stowaways in wheel wells have died, including a 16-year-old killed during a flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Boston in 2010 and a man who fell onto a suburban London street from a flight from Angola in 2012.

  

Top Stories


Leave a Comment

Title: Teen survives flight in landing gear bay



You have 2000 characters left.

Disclaimer:

Please write your correct name and email address. Kindly do not post any personal, abusive, defamatory, infringing, obscene, indecent, discriminatory or unlawful or similar comments. Daijiworld.com will not be responsible for any defamatory message posted under this article.

Please note that sending false messages to insult, defame, intimidate, mislead or deceive people or to intentionally cause public disorder is punishable under law. It is obligatory on Daijiworld to provide the IP address and other details of senders of such comments, to the authority concerned upon request.

Hence, sending offensive comments using daijiworld will be purely at your own risk, and in no way will Daijiworld.com be held responsible.