Photo: Getty
A 22-year-old Kenyan man was found alive in the front wheel section of a cargo plane after the aircraft completed an 11-hour flight to Europe, according to authorities.
The man was found on Sunday morning in the nose wheel of the cargo plane, which flew from South Africa to Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam, Dutch military police said in a translated statement over theweekend.
“[He] is doing well under the circumstances and has been transported to the hospital,” police said in a tweet.
In anupdateon Monday, police said they are looking into whether the incident is a case of migrant smuggling.
“Our first concern of course was for his health,” military police spokeswoman Joanna Helmonds toldReuters. “This is definitely very unusual that someone was able to survive the cold at such a height — very, very unusual.”
The man has sinceappliedfor asylum, police also said on Monday.
“We of course see that a lot of people try to enter Europe for a better life,” he explained. “We see it every day, not only in airports but also in ports and highways.”
Van Kapel believed the man boarded the aircraft in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, where it stopped en route to Amsterdam from Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa.
In 2019, astowaway fell from a plane flying over Londonand was killed when he crashed into a residential garden near a man who was sunbathing.
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In November, a26-year-old man survived a flightfrom Guatemala to Miami after hiding in the plant’s landing gear compartment.
At the age of 12 in 1946,Bas Wiebecame one of the earliest reported people to have survived a stowaway fight in a plane’s wheel compartment. He went on to marry and have five children before dying in 2016 at age 82.
source: people.com
