Stowaway in AF flight from GRU to CDG
 

Dead stowaway found in landing gear of Air France plane from Brazil to Paris | Metro News

The interesting wrinkle here is that the corpse wasn't found at CDG, but three days later when the plane was at Orly. What does that say about walkaround inspection performed before a flight?

Not using all five senses during the walk around.

Not necessarily - if the body was frozen in flight it might have stayed relatively fresh. When you consider that a long-haul aircraft may only be on the ground for a couple of hours twice a day, that's a lot of time for it to remain cold.

If it hadn't fallen out then presumably it was well wedged in and probably not visible in the shadows (not that I've ever looked in the wheel well of a 777).

What does it say about security? I bet the took the bottled water off the captain, however.

I'm with llondel.

At the same time, the issue of why wasn't the body found for 3 days can be transposed as 'why was the body found after 3 days'?

Dean

I spent 5 years as a B772 Capt flying routes that were not generally thought of as subject to stowaways. Thus preflight walk rounds did not involve looking closely into the main wheel wells. Why? They are about 12 feet above your head and there is little to see with the doors shut.

On one or two occasions I felt it necessary to have the main doors "dropped" to the open position but this requires a "procedure" and the engineers would try to avoid doing that because it could cause a delay.

If you need a proper look in the '77 wheel bay you need to work at it.....

But surely they are checked on a daily inspection by the engineers??

Agree with ETOPS's comments, there is no way you can see into the deeper recesses of a 777's wheel wells without either climbing onto wheels and then climbing up the gear structure or using specialist equipment and/or dropping doors.

Haven't got a copy of a "daily"to hand but doubt there's be any need to get up and into wheel wells.

Did it position to ORY or did it go somewhere downroute and back?

The aircraft appears to have landed at CDG on Sunday morning, and positioned to Orly around 3 hours later.

Read on a Brazilian forum that one of the 777 that flew GRU-CDG on this date (there are 2 daily flights), F-GSQG, had previously flown Libreville, Gabon-CDG on 06/01, before the outbound leg CDG-GRU.

The other 777 had flown YYZ-CDG before going to Brazil.

Neither is correct.

The previous rotation for the aircraft in question was AF112/117 to/from Shanghai (PVG), arriving back at CDG around 4:30pm local time on Friday and departing to GRU shortly before midnight.

Wheel well is being used as a generic term, I do not know of many aircraft where there is a space to hide in a wheel well that will not dump or crush a person upon gear retraction. All aircraft I have worked with have sub structure aft of the wing spar, O/B of the wheel well and I/B of the MLG trunion, on a wide body aircraft there is plenty of space for a human. Dropping the W/W doors will do you little good to view this area, often it may be possible for someone to climb up the gear and enter this area, the only way to inspect it is usually by climbing up on a tire or using a ladder.

OK, if seeing in there is difficult, how DID the body come to light?

Becomes apparent.
 

Quote: "OK, if seeing in there is difficult, how DID the body come to light?"


Starts to smell, drip.

Dead body found in landing gear of New York to Tokyo Delta Flight
 

That's how a Delta mechanic (engineer) discovered this stowaway back in 2010.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/worl...ticle-1.171196

I'd be more concerned that someone, presumably not screened, managed to get airside and close enough to get onto an aircraft, undetected. Lucky he was hiding there, not hiding something there

Posts 24 & 30 of this thread may go some way towards answering your question:


http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/1...idden-pax.html

Operating frequent transatlantic flights to Havana,from Europe,large truck with powerful searchlight was alway positioned at side of taxiway,for night time departures.
All holding aircraft,ex Havana,were we'll scrutinized,until takeoff.

Screening
 

I don't agree with Snyggapa assumption unfortunate deceased person was not screened. Such a person seeking to reach destination of aircraft could obtain basic airport employment not needing to pass security with forbidden goods. He might move clothing to locker or drawer over a period then access aircraft just before departure. To my mind no security failure is indicated. During the 80's mysterious bodies were being found in the London suburbs, sometimes on a rooftop. Only when a frozen one was found did the penny drop.