Bodies falling from the sky: It didn’t start with KQ
By Mercy Asamba | Tuesday, Jul 2nd 2019 at 15:45
Share this story:
The dead Kenya Airways stowaway found in a garden in south London, near the Heathrow Airport on Monday is not the first wheel well-climber to fall from a flight.
Many have tried for various reasons but only few people have endured the harsh conditions that should in theory, rapidly kill any person.
According to BBC most flights tend to cruise at a height of between 30,000 and 40,000ft and the standard ambient temperature at 35,000ft is around -54C.
Oxygen levels, adds the BBC report, also drop to about 26 per cent of those at sea level. This is why most stowaways who climb into the small space above a wheel die while the plane is in the skies. The bodies usually fall off as the plane lowers its landing gear ahead of landing.
It didn’t start with KQ
READ MORE
Body of a man who fell from KQ jet found in London
Is KQ headed for divorce with KLM?
Puzzle of school land turned into private property
April 13, 2019: A homeless man was found on the tarmac of the Félix Éboué Airport Pointe-à-Pitre in Cayenne, French Guiana after the flight made a refueling stop at Fort-de-France between Pointe-à-Pitre and Cayenne.
Police could not immediately establish how a man who appeared to be suffering from mental disorders succeeded in thwarting all security protocols.
April 20, 2014: A 16 year-old Yahya Abdi, a Somali national, stowed away in a Boeing 767 from San Jose, California, to Maui, Hawaii. He survived lack of oxygen and freezing temperatures on a five-hour flight from California to Hawaii.
In an interview with US broadcaster Voice of America, the boy's father, Abdilahi Yusuf Abdi, said his son was "always talking about going back to Africa" where his mother was ever since the family came to the US. The parents had divorced earlier and his efforts were for the sake of reuniting with his mother.
August 24, 2013: A 14-year-old Daniel Ihekina is said to have evaded the security at Benin City Airport in Nigeria and hid in the undercarriage of an airplane that was heading to Lagos.
Airline spokesman Ola Adebanji told Reuters that Daniel Ihekina evaded airport security and snuck into the tire section of the flight just before the wheels went up for takeoff.
He said that the plane only went up 21,000 feet because it was a short flight, increasing the boy’s chances of surviving the thinner, colder air at high altitudes.
August 4, 2000: 24-year-old Fidel Maruhi survived at 38,000 ft. He was exposed to freezing temperatures and low oxygen levels. Maruhi was discovered during a refueling stopover in Los Angeles, He later said that the main motive behind his travel to France.
In an interview, Roger Connor, curator at the National Air and Space Museum told NBC News the boy was lucky.
“The first thing is that you’re almost unpressurized at that altitude. We are talking about pressures at nearly 40,000 feet. That’s going to be about 30 percent less than the pressure at the top of Mount Everest,” he said.
Not so lucky
February 26, 2018: Two men who were believed to be stowaways on a US-bound flight from Ecuador died after falling from the aircraft. Police said that the employees at the airport spotted three objects falling from the plane. The men were identified as Marco Vinicio and Luis Manuel.
According to Washing Post, authorities said the two teenagers were cousins from a province outside Guayaquil.
February 14, 2016: Another body of unidentified man on Western Global Airlines flight from Munich, Germany to Durban, South Africa was discovered during refueling at Harare International Airport in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwean aviation authorities also impounded millions of South African rand on the cargo jet.
February 11, 2018: A body of unidentified African male was found after a Kenya Airways flight from Kinshasa in the DRC made an emergency landing at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi. The victim froze to death on the flight that was heading to Ukunda, Kwale County.
September 21, 2016: The unidentified male died as he stowed away on Boeing 747 plane from Nigeria heading to Jeddah. The body was discovered in the rear wheel well during regular check at King Abdulaziz International Airport.
June 19, 2015: One man was found dead on the roof of a building in Richmond City of Virginia, while another was found in a critical condition after they both stowed away on to a British Airways flight from Johannesburg.
Carlito Vale, a Mozambican, was in a critical condition and hospitalised.
August 2, 1996: Two Mongolian boys, about 9 and 12 years who hid in the wheel well of an Air Force plane flying from Mongolia to Japan died and bodies discovered during a post-flight inspection.
“The child, who was between 8 and 10, was suffering from frostbite, hypothermia and hypoxia -- basically oxygen starvation,' Kevin Krejcavek, spokesman for the US Forces in Japan told CNN. The other boy died two days later. The boys are said to have sneaked into a wheel well of a US Air Force plane that was delivering blankets and clothing to Mongolia.
www.thecitizen.co.tz
