Passenger survives trip in landing gear of aircraft

French authorities reported that an unidentified man was discovered during routine technical checks on a commercial Air Algerie aircraft that had flown from Oran, Algeria to Paris.

The individual, believed to be in his 20s, was found in the landing gear compartment and was in a life-threatening condition due to severe hypothermia after the two-and-a-half-hour flight.

He was immediately taken to a nearby hospital, but did not have any identification on him. It is important to note that survival is highly unlikely for anyone traveling in the landing gear compartment of commercial aircraft due to the extreme temperatures and lack of oxygen at high altitudes.

In a similar incident last year, a cargo plane in Amsterdam was found to have a stowaway passenger in the front wheel section, and in 2019, a frozen body fell from a Kenya Airways plane’s landing gear compartment in a London suburb.

The US Federal Aviation Administration’s data shows that the mortality rate of stowaway passengers between 1947 and 2021 was approximately 77%, and during this period, 132 individuals were identified as stowaways attempting to travel in commercial airplane landing gear compartments.