A teenage boy was discovered alive after hiding in the landing gear of a plane traveling from Kenya to the Netherlands, and it survived for several hours.
The 16-year-old boy is said to be from Kenya and allegedly boarded the plane in Nairobi, although it is not clear how he managed to get on board.
The cargo plane presumably departed from Nairobi on Wednesday. It is understood that they stopped in Istanbul and at Stansted Airport in the United Kingdom before arriving at Maastricht Airport on Thursday afternoon.
The boy, who has not yet been named, was discovered by staff at Maastricht airport shortly after the plane took off. He was taken to hospital with severe hypothermia, but according to him he is doing well now.
A spokesman for London Stansted Airport told the Guardian that there was no suggestion that anything was wrong with Stansted, and that the breakaway was presumably already on board when the plane arrived at the airport.
The Dutch Royal Marechaussee, a police branch of the Dutch army, is investigating whether the teenager was smuggled by human traffickers on board the plane, reports Telegraph.
A spokesperson for Maastricht Aachen airport said the boy was very happy to be alive. “He was very lucky to get through this,” he told Netherlands News Live.
Since commercial flights are about 38,000 feet high, the chances of survival are slim. Breakaways trying to hide in the landing gear of planes often freeze to death or die due to lack of oxygen.
In 2015, the body of a getaway from the chassis of a plane traveling from Johannesburg to London fell to the roof of an office in West London. Another man spent six months in hospital after clinging to the chassis of the jumbo plane during the ten-hour flight and surviving the icy temperature.
The survivor, now named Justin, told the Guardian in December he thought it was worth it.
“Because of my situation and what I went through, it was the only choice to survive,” he said.