A man in a state of “severe hypothermia” was discovered in the landing gear of a flight landing at Paris-Orly airport, coming from Algeria, sources linked to the trial told France-Presse (AFP) on Thursday.
The warning of the situation was given late in the morning, after the arrival of an Air Algérie plane, which landed in Orly from Oran, Algeria, a judicial source explained to AFP.
The man found in the landing gear had no identity documents and is estimated to be between 20 and 30 years old, according to the same source.
After he was found, he was taken to hospital in serious condition, he added.
The investigation is led by the Air Transport Authority (GTA, in its French acronym).
An airport source told AFP that the man was “found alive but in absolute emergency due to severe hypothermia.”
The GTA also confirmed to AFP the presence of a “seriously injured person” in Orly.
A source linked to the trial added that the discovery occurred during “technical checks” on the device.
This source also confirmed that the man was “transported to a hospital by firefighters,” still alive.
In recent years, several cases of stowaways hiding in aircraft landing gear, an unheated space or a pressurized space have been reported.
In April, the body of a man was found in Amsterdam-Schiphol upon the arrival of a plane from Toronto (Canada), which had stopped in Nigeria.
Four months earlier, two stowaways, who also died, were discovered hiding in the landing gear storage compartment of a plane departing Santiago de Chile bound for Bogotá, Colombia.
In July 2019, the frozen body of a man fell into a garden in a London suburb, three feet away from a resident who was sunbathing. This man reportedly fell from a Kenya Airways plane as he approached Heathrow Airport.
At the cruising altitude of commercial aircraft, between 30,000 and 40,000 feet (between 9.1 km and 12.1 km), the air temperature drops below -50°C, while a lack of oxygen can be fatal.
According to global statistics from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), cited by the New York Times in January 2022, between 1947 and 2021, 132 people attempted to travel clandestinely, hiding in airline landing gear.
One hundred and two died, a mortality rate of 77%, according to the same source.
Source: DN
