Boy between airplane wheel: ‘Stowaway in the air almost always fatal’ | Inland

“He is in hospital and has not yet been able to give a statement. He was severely hypothermic. We do not know nationality and no reason for this desperate act, ”said a spokesman for the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee.

According to flight safety expert Benno Baksteen, former KLM captain, stowaways in the air usually end fatal. “Every year there are a number of sad cases worldwide. These young people, sometimes asylum seekers, do not realize that you cannot survive outside at a height of 10 km. There is not enough oxygen and it freezes 50 degrees. The flight from London to Maastricht is short and lower. That was his salvation. More luck than wisdom. ”

Baksteen has also seen it regularly in his active career as a pilot. “Then, for example, air traffic control in Japan said that we had to fold out our wheels above the sea before landing. Because they didn’t want dead stowaways falling in people’s gardens above land. ”

According to him, there is certainly room in the wheel arch of an airplane for an illegal free rider. “They have to penetrate the secured airport grounds, but that is very large. Then you have to make sure that you are not crushed to death in the landing gear when the wheels are retracted after take-off. But most of them suffocate or freeze to death. “

Stowaways on planes are a growing problem, according to aviation authorities, due to the increasing number of asylum seekers, as well as in trucks and on ferries. Still, world umbrella organization IATA cannot give exact figures. Often deceased people fall out of the wheel arch on the way. “In any case, it is a hopeless mission,” says Baksteen.

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