Glueball has it.

Most (reconstructed) accounts of these 'draughty class' fliers have concluded they boarded the aircraft from the holding point.

Cameras would seem to be the most cost-effective safeguard.

i disagree with cameras, i believe a sensoring device would be of better use, then the captains wouldn't have to worry about an extra check. They will only have to worry about it if the light on the cockpit flashes to indicate movement in the well.

To be honest, my thoughts are condolences to the persons family.
For someone to have done this he/she must have been very desparate or scared.

"For someone to have done this he/she must have been very desparate or scared."

I'm not sure that's true.

eg The two Cubans who stowed away on a BA 777 out of Cuba a couple of years ago weren't motivated by either desperation or fear. They thought, wrongly, the aircraft was going to Florida and stowing away on a short flight was an easy way to get into American illegally.

eg People who cling to the underside of high speed trains through the channel tunnel aren't motivated by desperation or fear. They can apply for asylum in any European country and are safe in France. They prefer to come into the UK illegally and are prepared to cheat and jump ahead of the people applying by the rules.

Does anybody have a missing crew member that they sent out to do a walk around and didn't return the the cockpit? Were they all there when the checklist was read???

I think we are all aware that the stowaways enter at the holding point. The need for checking wheelbays is based on the fact that often the body remains in the aircraft during the turnaround and falls out on a subsequent sector. Why let one tragic death become two?

I have just read a local news report from Nigeria where it's claimed the man was Nigerian

It also states that the aircraft was in Nigeria on Christmas eve. Given that this same aircraft would have operated a couple more sectors before the JFK flight, it's surprising he wasn't found earlier.
In support of Sooty, I think people do these things out of desperation.
From the same newspaper

Considering the number of posts about Sky Marshalls on aircraft isn't anybody worried that it is so easy for someone to access an aircraft on the taxiways?

Surely the low-tech approach is to fill any voids with light rigid foam blocks, and remove any ledges that allow stowaways to "roost"? :8

I know i always check the L.G.B when i do my walk round is something i was tought when doing my training i know i am only a humble push back driver/ head set man but its my job to check the whole aircraft on my walk round the buck stops with me as i am the last one to check the aircraft

i was alwas told a job worth doing is a job worth doing properly :)

If all available space is removed from the bays there would still be a place for the wheel to go! Filling all other space would ensure groundcrew have to remove the stowaway with a pressure washer instead of just levering out the frozen remains.

The point a few have made is that passengers/crew have to go throught all sorts of rigamarole to approach the aircraft, but here is a path that only requires a set of bolt cutters and a sense of timing.

I think more surveillance is neccessary, don't know how.

Multiple barriers/fences/sensor fields around the runways and a great enough distance between the barriers and the apron to make it virtually impossible to defeat them all and sprint the distance to the holding jet in under 1 minute eg. about 1/3 mile secure perimeter with no cover.

Also, strategic deployment of some of those non-lethal technologies we keep hearing about, such as emission of low-frequency sounds that disorient and cause nausea...a few speakers around the end of the runways, pointed away from the aircraft, should make it very uncomfortable or impossible for anyone to lurk in the bushes.

Might even get rid of dangerous bird colonies and help avert birdstrikes.

Heliport:

Cuban workers typically earn between 8 and 20 US Dollars a month and I believe that is motivation enough to attempt to migrate to pastures new.

Spodman:
I'm no expert but I guess that the additional space around the wheel is there to allow air cooling of the the wheel. I'm unconvinced of the advantages of converting a stowaway into paste. Sloping surfaces on the internal surfaces may make it more difficult though. All in all, it's a scary thought that it's just so easy to gain access to a wheel well when the "stowaway" could easily be a terrorist bomb. Clearly with increased passenger checking, the wheel bays present the obvious opportunity for terrorists to plant explosive devices.

Cycle the gear a couple of times after take-off should sort this problem out!!!

Lamina,
a while ago there was a stowaway who caused the LG light to stay on after retraction. The pilots recycled the gear, and the light went out.

The stowaway was pretty much frozen solid by the time he got to the US, but he survived. He recalled the wheels opening, thinking it was a miraculously short flight, and the horror of seeing the ocean hundreds of feet below. He managed to hang on, and avoid being crushed, until the gear was retracted again and the doors closed.

He was granted asylum by the US, and his story was published in Readers' Digest.

TVR (and prob lucky/skilled to be alive ;) )
Great story until the last two words.

I'd say the best way is to plaster the inside of the LG bay with little pictures like the ones on safety cards. But instead of cartoon women taking off their stilletoes before going down the chute you could have depictions of little thin stowaway man being crushed to death by a great fat aircraft Pirreli, or turning blue from lack of oxygen, or perhaps a little cartoon block of ice with a man inside it.

That'd make em think twice.

....or,

You could put a specially shaped guard-dog in there. A fierce brown one, with big angry teeth.

I'll go back to my original post. What happens when a "package" one of these folks is carrying goes off at 30,000+ feet. What effect would a bomb, and subsequently one or more tires blowing up too, have on an aircraft at altitude. Given all of the cancelled BA flights this week, I would think people in wheelwells would warrant whatever costs it would take to make sure they are not there.

Patrical,

As the blast would be outside the pressure vessel it might not be as bad as if it was in the cargo bay. Though they will be near a lot of stuff that could be damaged. It would depend where in the wheel well they are I guess. In some parts it would be a pretty much non event (predicated on size of course) in other places it might be worse...

The wheel wells are BIG cavernous places that even with the doors open you might not see everything that is available to hide in. But if you went mucking around in there you are likely to damage something as well so its a tough thing to do.

I don't have the answer. I was looking at my A300 wheel wells today during walkaround thinking about that, and a couple of other points came to mind. Those doors are swung hydraulicly. They are VERY fast and powerful. Infact they are exceptionally dangerous. Every year someone gets cut in half by them just on the normal uses of them. IF you started swinging the doors before every push back you would probably kill a few more people every year, and you still haven't protected yourself from the guy that runs out of the long grass and scampers up the landing gear as you taxi out (probably how they all get on in the first place)

Cheers
WIno