I did not think it was possible!! A 15 year old boy survived a 5 1/2 hour flight in the wheel well of a Boeing 767. The flight was from San Jose, CA to Kahului, Maui. The jet's cruising altitude was 38,000 feet. The boy was found dazed and confused on the airport tarmac. Paramedics said he seemed to have no injuries, but was taken to a hospital for observation. Unbelievable!!
Round object in square hole? Better than not having room and him getting crushed to death and likely messing up stuff. Why don't they make the rear landing gear enclosure like the front (at least the front of the Concorde's)? It's not left wide open. It opens to let the gear out, but then doors shut to close off the area while gear is down to make it more aerodynamic I suppose. The main landing gear I'm sure is harder to do this since it's a larger gear, but it would prevent people from getting inside there unless specifically opened for service. Pic of Concorde front landing gear doors closed once gear is down: http://www.concordesst.com/model101/taster/sd15.jpg No access unless you open it for service.
Those main landing gear doors ARE closed after the gear is extended and they can be opened for service and inspection when the airplane is parked. Obviously they were left open when the airplane was parked. This incident puzzles me.Another thought. What happened to the pre-flight inspection by flight crew?
An FAA study a few years back showed a 20% survival rate for wheel well stowaways, so it's not at all out of the question. There was a fairly large number of attempts in the time period they looked at, too.
Thanks for the info. I figured they had that feature as I've seen it before on the 747 (obvious to notice as it's a huge door). However, could the guy still climb the gear and squeeze into the gap left open by the landing gear door when closed? This video shows it as you can still see the lighting inside the wheel well (14 second mark) after the door closes with gear down. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cwqRjN3zNE]Boeing 767 teste trem de pouso landing gear test 360p) - YouTube[/ame] If the guy got in because the door was left open, wow...I would've thought it automatically closes when gear down and to open the door for service, manual override has to be done. Guess not...
People sometimes jump over the fence and run across the tarmac to climb in while the jet is waiting for takeoff clearance. Has happened before. Usually it's fatal but people have been known to survive. There was a famous case of a man who stowed away to JFK (I want to say from Cuba, but it could be Africa as well), and he fell out frozen solid while the jet was parked at the gate. He thawed out in the hospital and made a full recovery. Desperation.
What bothers me the most is that anyone wanting to take out an airliner really doesn't need to get by those dim bulbs at the gate wearing TSA uniforms. Just climb the fence anywhere in the couple of miles of fence around the airport and climb aboard or whatever. San Jose airport isn't any different than most in that sense.
Where there's a will there's a way. If jumping the fence is difficult due to razorwire (extreme example), buying a pair of wire cutters from Home Depot could easily get access. Spotting someone doing this at night? Forget it...airport security will always have reactive response changes to security, not proactive. Just when the next event happens, not if.
It's also possible that he didn't stow away literally in the wheel well, but rather climbed in through the baggage door to a pressurized compartment.
I assume that you imply that he went into the baggage compartment and NOT the wheel well since there is no access to the wheel well from the pressurized areas. The only way out of the wheelwell is straight down. It is difficult for me to believe that he was in the wheel well when he had no oxygen and was in -50 deg. temps. and escaped being crushed by the linkage being moved by a 3500psi system.
Evidently they found his fingerprints all over the inside of the wheel well according to local news reports. Hard to believe still... SV
Yes, that he got directly into the baggage compartment from the ground, and never was literally in the wheel well at all.
What did we do before google? Body Falls From Plane Man found dead in street below Heathrow flight path could be illegal immigrant stowaway | Mail Online Human body parts fall from the sky in Saudi Arabia | Metro News http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/us/11plane.html?_r=0
Stowaway slept in wheel well of plane at California airport, FBI says - Yahoo News I was wondering if the lowered temps allowed for the lack of oxygen. They say out of 105 stowaways 80 have died but then in 1947 I don't think too many planes were cruising at 38,000.
I'm afraid I have to agree. This apparent lapse in security is scary, but what I find strangest about this whole ordeal is the following; the boy said he missed Africa and wanted to go home. Why, then, did he get on a Hawaiian Airlines plane? Next time I go through aerospace physiology refresher training, I'm going to ask them about this one.
He failed geography. Most Americans can't find Canada on a map. You going to hold a Somalian kid to a higher standard? Canada is the second biggest country on the planet. And lets see. Where would I rather go? Somalia? Hawaii? Gee...not sure.
No, but pressurized airliners then flew at FL 250 or so... that's almost as high as Everest and just as cold.
I'm thinking back to those years and the only airliner that I can think of that was pressurized was the Boeing 367 Stratoliner. DC-4's and Connies come to mind but there weren't many transports that flew at 25K. I can't remember when the Stratocruiser came on line but maybe it was in operation by '47. I'll look it up. Two years before the noted date I was flying around in B-24's at 24K but they sure weren't pressurized. Cabin temp wasn't regulated worth a damn, minus 40. Lousy flight attendants, too.
Okay, the Lockheed Constellation was the first pressurized regularly operated transport in 1947. The Boeing Stratocruiser came later.
An off topic anecdote - Gallup did a poll in 2008 which revealed that 2 out of 5 of the Americans sampled could not locate the United States on a map showing only the United States.
Bob, Were the DC-4 and DC-6 pressurized... airliner versions? I thought they were. They may not have been in regular service in 47, though. By '50, for sure, pressurized was the norm for long flights. Small airlines, like Frontier, were still flying DC-3's. I know the Connie was, and the Stratocruiser (modified B-29, sort of, which was pressurized, mostly).