A man in a state of “severe hypothermia” was found in the undercarriage of a plane landing at Paris-Orly airport, arriving from Algeria, sources connected to the case told AFP this Thursday.
The warning about the situation was issued late in the morning, following the arrival of an Air Algérie plane that landed in Orly from Oran, Algeria, a judicial source explained to AFP.
According to the same source, the man found in the chassis had no identification documents and is estimated to be between 20 and 30 years old.
After being discovered, he was taken to hospital in serious condition, he added.
The investigation is being carried out by the Air Transport Authority (GTA, its French acronym).
An airport source told AFP that the man was found “alive but in critical condition due to severe hypothermia.”
The GTA also confirmed to AFP the presence of a “seriously injured person” in Orly.
A source connected to the process added that the discovery occurred during “technical checks” of the device.
This source also confirmed that the man was “transported to hospital by firefighters” while still alive.
In recent years, several cases have been reported of stowaways hiding in aircraft landing gear, unheated or sealed rooms.
In April, a man’s body was discovered in Amsterdam-Schiphol upon the arrival of a plane from Toronto, Canada, which had stopped in Nigeria.
Four months ago, two stowaways, who also died, were found hiding in the luggage compartment of a plane taking off from Santiago de Chile and bound for Bogota, Colombia.
In July 2019, the frozen body of a man fell in a garden in a south-west London suburb, a meter away from a sunbathing resident. The man reportedly fell from a Kenya Airways plane as it approached Heathrow Airport.
At commercial aircraft cruising altitudes, between 30,000 and 40,000 feet (9.1 km to 12.1 km), air temperatures drop below -50°C and a lack of oxygen can be fatal.
According to global statistics from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), cited in January 2022 by the New York Times, between 1947 and 2021, 132 people attempted to travel clandestinely by hiding in airline landing gear.
One hundred and two people died, a mortality rate of 77%, according to the same source.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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