In Los Angeles, a British Airways pilot found a body inside the wheel well of a jet bound for London. It's thought that he was a South African who attempted to hitch a free ride on the jet.
Wheel well stowaways usually die from cold, lack of oxygen, or getting crushed in the landing gear, but once in a while one of them survives.
In 2000, a man survived a flight from Papeete, French Polynesia, to Los Angeles. His core body temperature when he was found at LAX was 79 degrees, well below what is normally fatal. A Cuban man made it alive to Montreal in the wheel well of a plane in 2002. And in 1999, an 18-year-old Senegalese man survived a five-hour flight to France, but died after he stowed away on another flight later that year.
More typical are cases like Sunday's discovery of the body at LAX. Authorities are uncertain, however, of the survival rate of wheel-well stowaways, because bodies that fall out of flying aircraft may not be recovered. Stowaways unable to secure themselves can fall more than 1,000 feet when landing gear doors open. Experts believe that many of those who fall out are already dead or unconscious.
