Whether succumbing to oxygen deprivation or hypothermia, being crushed by the landing gear, or falling from a plane’s wheel well, being a stowaway is a risky business
Tragic teens Jeik Aniluz Lusi, 18, and Elvis Borques Castillo, 16, were identified as the stowaways found dead in the landing gear compartment of a JetBlue plane this week. DNA was used to identify the boys, who were discovered on January 6 during a post-flight inspection at Florida’s Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The plane had arrived from New York’s JFK Airport via the Dominican Republic, from where the young men hailed.
JetBlue described the security breach as a “heartbreaking situation”, and sadly there are now several tragic cases on record of stowaways risking their lives in a bid to enter countries around the world. The odds are stacked against them – the US Federal Aviation Administration has estimated one in four people survive the journey.
And these odds only come from the cases the FAA managed to identify. As aviation expert Irene King told the BBC, many stowaways don’t even make it to their destinations. We take a look at the stories of three people who did survive and later spoke about their ordeals…
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I woke up on the runway
A South African man called Themba Cabeka survived an 11-hour flight from Johannesburg to London after hiding in a British Airways plane’s undercarriage. He had studied aircraft designs with his pal Vale, who joined him on the desperate journey in 2015.
“I was not far from the engine,” Themba, now known as Justin, told Channel 4 documentary The Man Who Fell From the Sky. “You could feel it outside when it was rotating. You could even see the houses down there when the plane was flying.” Themba wrapped his arms through cabling to prevent him falling out of the plane, and was left with burn marks.
Sadly, Vale did not make the journey – he fell 1,400ft from the sky. “He said: ‘We made it’,” said Justin. “And then I passed out with the lack of oxygen.”
Justin woke up on the runway of Heathrow Airport with a shattered leg and next woke up in hospital. He now lives in Liverpool.
It was like an earthquake
Desperate Pardeep Saini and his brother Vijay paid £150 to a people smuggler, who claimed they could get into a luggage compartment from a wheel bay on a British Airways plane from New Delhi, India to London Heathrow. Instead Pardeep, 22 and Vijay, 19, endured temperatures of minus -60C in October 1996 as they flew 40,000ft hidden inside the wheel bay of the Boeing 747.
Vijay quickly succumbed to the extreme conditions and died “probably before the first drinks were served”. His body fell 2,000ft to the ground when the landing gear was opened for landing. Pareep survived the journey and was found by astonished airport staff staggering on the runway. He was taken to hospital and treated for severe hypothermia.
“The noise was terrible,” Pardeep told the Mirror of the moment after take-off. “The wheel house was shaking. It was like an earthquake. My whole body started feeling numb. My next memory is of being in a detention centre in Britain, where I was told my brother was dead.”
Vijay’s body had been found five days later at a disused gasworks in Richmond, Surrey. Griefstricken Pardeep would later marry and have two children, going onto work as a driver for a catering company at Heathrow.
I saw the ocean from 38,000 feet
Californian Yahya Adbi was just 15 years old when he survived a plane ride from San Jose Airport to Maui, in Hawaii, in 2014. Hopping the airport fence in the early hours of the morning, he waited for six hours until he randomly chose a plane, crouched down in its wheel well and covered his ears as it took off.
Incredibly, Yahya survived his five and a half hour journey, which saw the plane reach an altitude of 38,000 feet. “It was above the clouds, I could see through the little holes,” he told KPIX of spying the Pacific Ocean. The teenanger was taken to hospital in Hawaii when he was found, but was later discharged.
The youngster had a heartbreaking reason for travelling – he wanted to reach his mum in an Ethiopian refugee camp, having last seen her when he was 7. And he had sage advice for any future stowaways: “They shouldn’t run away because sometimes they will end up dying,” he said.
