Passenger secretly survives flight on landing gear – 23/01/2022
2 min read
A stowaway traveled nearly nine thousand kilometers between Johannesburg, South Africa, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands, hiding in the undercarriage of a cargo plane. The announcement was made on Sunday (23) by the Dutch Military Police.
According to Joan Helmonds, a spokeswoman for the Dutch military police, the man was taken to hospital as soon as he was discovered at Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport, inside the aircraft’s front wheel system. His identity and nationality have not been revealed.
The man reportedly hid before takeoff in Johannesburg. “He was discovered alive and soon taken to hospital,” Helmonds said. To her, it is surprising that the individual survived the flight, with an average duration of 11 hours, and extremely low temperatures at high altitudes.
Helmonds confirmed that police were investigating Cargolux Italia, which chartered the plane. “Our main concern, of course, is the health of this man,” he said.
A police spokeswoman confirmed that secret passengers on flights to the Netherlands are rare. According to her, the previous attempts were carried out by citizens of Nigeria or Kenya.
In 2021, Dutch border police discovered the body of a Nigerian man on the undercarriage of a plane bound for Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport. A year earlier, the case of teenage 14-year-old Laurent Barthelemy Annie Gebahey moved to France. The boy was born in Côte d’Ivoire, and died in the wheel system of an Air France plane, which was flying from Abidjan to Paris.
(With information from Agence France-Presse)
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