Flying a 'hare' on an airplane's landing gear: what are the chances of flying and surviving

Last week from the Kenya Airways aircraft flying from Nairobi to London Heathrow Airport, body fell out stowaway. A frozen corpse fell into a garden in south London, where it nearly killed the owner of the house. It turns out that such attempts to travel as a “hare” are not so unique. What are the chances of the daredevil “hares” to fly alive?

Фото: Depositphotos

Extreme people who decide to fly illegally in the technical department of an airplane are a separate category of free riders and quite small in number. Much more often, “hares” try to get on board using someone else’s or fake documents.

Hiding often?

Infrequently, but it happens.

According to the British Civil Aviation Authority, between January 2004 and March 2015, six “hares” were found at British airports trying to travel in the landing gear bays.

According to the United States Federal Aviation Administration, from 1947 to 2012, 85 registered such incidents around the world all over the world, the total number of free riders was 96.

How many of them die?

Only in the UK recorded several such deaths.

In 2001, the body of 21-year-old Mohammed Ayaz from Pakistan was found in the parking lot of a store in London's Richmond, near Heathrow Airport. Four years earlier, the body of another “hare” was found near the same store, which fell out of an airplane.

In 2007, the body of a young man was found in a compartment for the chassis of a British Airways liner in Los Angeles.

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In August 2012, the body of a stowaway was found in the landing gear of a plane flying into Heathrow from Cape Town. In September of the same year, the body of 26-year-old Jose Matadi from Mozambique was discovered in west London, who died from multiple injuries - he fell from a plane flying from Angola.

In June 2015, a man's body was found on the roof of an office building in Richmond. Another man was found alive but in a critical condition at Heathrow. It is believed that they flew "hares" from Johannesburg.

As a rule, those who survive such flights are quite young people, and they fly on relatively short flights.

In June, 2010, in the compartment for the liner chassis, flown to Heathrow from Vienna, found the 20-year-old citizen of Romania. Because of the bad weather, the airliner did not rise above 7600 meters in flight.

According to the US Federal Aviation Administration, 23 people - about one in four - survived the flight in the landing gear bay.

Other known cases:

1969 - Arma Socarras Ramirez, 22 years old, managed to survive a flight from Havana to Madrid, suffering from frostbite.

1996 - Pardeep Saini, 23, survives a 10-hour flight from Delhi to London. His brother Vijay fell out of the plane on approach to Heathrow.

2000 - Fidel Maru survived a trip from Tahiti to Los Angeles on a Boeing 747.

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2002 - Victor Alvarez Molina, 22, survived a four-hour flight from Cuba to Montreal in a DC-10.

2014 - Yaghya Abdi, 15, survived a Boeing 767 flight from California to Hawaii.

What happens during the flight?

Air travel in the landing gear compartment is associated with serious risks due to the extreme conditions in which the “hares” are found during the flight.

The landing gear, which during the flight hiding in the body of the aircraft, can easily crush a person.

During a flight, a stowaway faces the dangers of frostbite, hearing loss and acidosis - an imbalance in the acid balance in the body, which can lead to coma and death.

Фото: Depositphotos

During the flight, the temperature in the compartment drops to -63 degrees Celsius, causing hypothermia.

At altitudes above 5500 meters, hypoxia occurs - an acute lack of oxygen, causing weakness, tremors, vision problems and delirium.

After reaching an altitude of 6700 meters, it will be difficult for travel free riders to remain conscious due to a drop in oxygen levels in the blood.

At altitudes of more than 10 kilometers typical for long-distance flights, human lungs cannot function independently; air must be forcibly pumped into them.

Moreover, upon approaching the destination airport, the landing gear compartment hatches open, and you can easily fall out of them - from a height of several hundred meters.

How do the “hares” get on board?

In some countries, the “clean zone” of the airport is not very strictly controlled, which makes it possible for purposeful “hares” to get on board the plane.

For example, in 2012, on a flight from Cape Town to London, the crew was informed already in flight that a man had been seen at Cape Town airport who had climbed over a fence and disappeared into the landing gear compartment.

Who are these people?

Most of them are men who are trying to migrate to Europe or North America.

Some of them flee from persecution at home or run away from conflict zones. Others expect to find a job with a decent salary and arrange their lives.

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