Stowaway Falls
"His body was an ice block" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48852316
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Some people were wondering how often stowaways survive. The BBC has some facts and figures on this:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33199985
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33199985
"many stowaways don't make it to their destinations, making it difficult to gauge the number of incidences"
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Surely a simple installation of 360 degree web cam ( and probably an internal light) would give the crew a view of the entire space within the wheel wells? Possibly other unrelated benefits to this too.
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2 stowaways in L-1011
Hello from Mssissauga Ontaro Canada. Our airline provided maintenance support to a Caribbean L-1011 operator in YYZ. The contract required one AME to work the pushback with the headphone in case of any last moment problem. As the aircraft was moving back from the gate the AME suddenly saw a pair of legs sticking out of the left main landing gear door from the small gap in the MLG door at the MLG cutout in the lower wing. The AME stopped the push back and returned it to the gate. The left MLG door was carefully opened an a very groggy young male slid out. He asked where his buddy was! At this point a very sheepish contract ground crew lead admitted that they had found another very groggy male under the aircraft and had placed him inside the warm up shack under the bridge. The AME climbed up inside the wheelwell and found a 3 foot cut to a fiberglass panel that led to an unpressured area in the forward fairing next to the AC PACKS.He found a bag of food and drinks , some cigarette butts , a 45 colt handgun , and a 7/16 box end wrench !! It looked like they had loosened a clamp on the main bleed air duct just enough to get a stream of hot air to keep themselves alive. It later turned out both males were wanted for murder !!!
It would be more accurate to say that only a very small proportion of stowaways who survive have travelled in a wheel-well. The rest will have been in a cargo hold or other pressurised compartment. The statistics probably underestimate the imbalance, since the wheel-well occupants are more likely not to figure at all in the stats if their fallen bodies have remained undiscovered.
While it's always difficult to counter misconceptions among the vulnerable, I can't help feeling that education would help. If potential wheel-well stowaways could understand that the odds of survival are hugely stacked against them (even compared to, say, a RIB across the Med) then perhaps we might see an end to these tragedies.
While it's always difficult to counter misconceptions among the vulnerable, I can't help feeling that education would help. If potential wheel-well stowaways could understand that the odds of survival are hugely stacked against them (even compared to, say, a RIB across the Med) then perhaps we might see an end to these tragedies.
I'll get my coat...
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It couldn't hurt to read the story MATELO linked to, just above:
The Man Who Fell from the Sky
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Happened in 2010 in Boston
A family in on a quiet suburban street awoke to find a body in their front yard. Medical examiner was shocked at the brutality and savagery of his injuries; surmised that he had been beaten and then deliberately run over with a car and then dumped. It took a while before the possibility of the deceased having been a stowaway emerged.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/us/11plane.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/us/11plane.html
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The Sky investigation was poor. The guy identified as the dead stowaway has actually been behind bars in Kenya since August. His pictures were lifted off social media pages. It's no surprise that Sky News has retracted the story and pulled it down. The airport cleaning company has also denied knowing him. It still remains a mystery who this guy is and where he's from.
