Stowaway.....

Did he actually survive the flight? The nose wheel well is not pressurized or heated on anything that I know about.

 

I would sure like to know how he managed that and on what type of aircraft. Normally there isn't any room left in the wheel well after the gear is retracted.

 

Apparently it was this A332 flight.

https://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/THY6305/history/20210204/0951Z/EGSS/EHBK

 

I read it was Cargolux flight, 747F equipment.

 

I find this tale hard to believe, as do many of my old friends. Sub zero temperatures, little or no oxygen, and in a crushable space. Of course, somebody will prove me wrong.

 

Bob- There have been instances of folks surviving in wheel wells on flights that should have killed them. I remember one teenager who hitched a ride to Hawaii and survived. Maybe sort of like drowning in really cold water and coming back.

 

is there a hatch though the nosewheel to the main pressure hull, he could have then hidden there is safety and exited how he came in.
Alternatively he hid in the cargo hold exited after landing and was found near the wheel well.

 

The nose wheel well "doghouse" is a pressure vessel and if my memory serves me, there is no access from the lower 41 section which is pressurized.

 

Bob, are you saying that the nose wheel well is itself pressurized?

 

MY DUMB ! Wrong description. It is a shell surrounding the unpressurized nose wheel retraction space, support structure, and retraction mechanism. I'm digging back through my old head and trying to visualize the area but I seem to remember that there is access from the flight deck floor to the lower 41 Section lobe and also access from the forward cargo area which is heated and pressurized. Keep in mind that I worked on all the commercial jets over a period of 22+ years and there were some differences in configurations. I'm wondering if that guy didn't hide in the lwr 41 and not the nose wheel well.

 

If you don't mind me asking what is a 41 Section and why is it called that?

 

Forgive me for reverting to the old days and terminology that was and is a part of it.
In the really old days , areas of the large airplanes were usually named or identified by the builder in terms like on the B-17.....pilot's compartment, tail gunner's compartment, and navigator's compartment, etc. Another builder might use a different identification for a similar area so it was a hodgepodge of terms. NASA decided to standardize the i.d. system so everybody was on the same page when they were talking about any airplane in the inventory no matter who built it.Usually the nose section is the 41 section, the fuselage sections aft of it are the 42, 43,44,45,46, and 48 all defined by particular station numbers. Station numbers are the distance in inches from Station Zero that is located a certain distance ahead the of the nose to account for probes.. The flight surfaces are also identified by sections, the wing was section 10 as I remember and that was broken down into subsections. Interspar was 12, leading edge was 14, trailing edge was 16, center section was 11. Vertical locations were identified as waterlines and also measured in inches from waterline zero located quite a distance from the lower fuselage to account for things like refueling booms and masts below the airplane . Horizontal locations are determined by Buttock lines, measured in inches from the centerline of the airplane . I hope that this sin't too confusing. I'll try to post a print of a section card or maybe Gatorrari has one handy. It's been a while since I messed with this. I'm open to corrections.

 

As an example of this, when I was on loan from Grumman to Boeing in 1979-80, we were working on the detail design of the 767 lower wing center section, which included the area below the wing carry-through structure, including the main wheel wells and the keel beam between them. Officially, this was the Lower Section 45. Grumman built all of those for the 767 until they sold off their Aerostructures division, initially to Vought. They were all built in Grumman's Plant 77 in Stuart, Florida, and shipped to Everett in rail cars.

 

Oops, you're right. This was the flight.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/CLX7153/history/20220119/2300Z/HKJK/EHAM

 

Jim, I must have been a few feet or yards from you at that time because I remember a Grumman engineer working days on end calculating bolt positions and edge margins in the rear spar terminal fitting. A very nice man from New York as I remember.
I was thinking about the progression of the metrics in aircraft design. Before 1941 the B-17 was dimensioned with the " English system", fractions down to 64th's. When the E model came along, the horizontal tail was the B-29 design being tested on it and the vertical fin was the new deign by George Schiara (spl) and both were measured in the decimal system. So, the B-17 went through it's wartime life after that with the old style fraction system forward of the empennage and the decimal system at the empennage. The present computer system with the X,Y,Z coordination ) fore and aft, up and down, inboard and outboard isn't new by any means because it is the same as what was created in the oldest ship building disciplines. Station lines identified where the frames were, water lines identified the height from the keel, buttock lines measured locations inboard and outboard from the center line of the hull which would be the keel. The current system can "pinpoint" a point, a part, an assembly with a multiple three position accurate address of umpteen digits Almost as good as the spline and eyeball from the old days.

 

Here's a picture to illustrate what Bob said:
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Some helicopters also use the section notation, although not all of them.

Here's another picture to illustrate the Station/Waterline/Buttline. BL 0.0 is always at the centerline of the aircraft. Sta 0.0 is usually at the farthest forward point on the aircraft, although not always. (I've seen some where the rotor mast is set to Sta500). WL... No idea what sets the waterline, Its generally seemed arbitrary on the aircraft I've worked on.
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I was informed that there is a hatch from the nose wheel housing providing access to the electronics bay in Lower Section 41 where it is heated and pressurized. This might be the answer to the survival questions.

 

Not locked? Or door sensor…?

SV

 

Looking at the SRM the hatch is on the fuselage adjacent to the NG well, not through the NG well.

 

There would be a sensor/switch and a warning light in the cockpit. The stowaway could have been onboard before the pilots even entered the cockpit for pre-flight checks.

 

Got it. I couldn't remember any hatch on the NG housing . It's been 31 years since I was involved with the airplane .

 

The second line from the bottom should read "40+ years," not" 22+ years."