Boy escapes
unharmed despite losing consciousness after hiding in freezing conditions on
flight from California to Hawaii
theguardian.com,
Jonathan Haynes and agencies, Monday 21 April 2014
A teenage runaway has survived a five-hour flight across the Pacific Ocean stowed away in the freezing wheel well of a jet plane.
The boy is taken away in an ambulance at Kahului airport in Maui, Hawaii, after stowing away in the wheel well of a flight from San Jose, California. Photograph: Chris Sugidono/AP |
A teenage runaway has survived a five-hour flight across the Pacific Ocean stowed away in the freezing wheel well of a jet plane.
Officials
said it was a "miracle" the 16-year-old boy did not die after he
quickly lost consciousness as temperatures dropped to as low as -62C (-80F) in
the compartment on the flight from California to Hawaii.
He was
discovered on the tarmac at Kahului airport in Maui, Hawaii, with no
identification after jumping down from the wheel well and wandering around the
airport grounds.
He had run
away from his family after an argument, officials said.
Security
footage from the San Jose airport, where the flight originated, showed that the
boy hopped over a fence to get to Hawaiian Airlines flight 45 on Sunday
morning.
FBI special
agent Tom Simon said: "It's just an apparent miracle … There was no
appearance of any special gear of any sort. He was unconscious for the lion's
share of the flight."
Simon said
the boy was medically screened and found to be unharmed. "[He] doesn't
even remember the flight," Simon said. "It's amazing he survived
that."
The boy,
who will not be charged, has been referred to child protection services, he
added.
Hawaiian
Airlines said airline personnel noticed the boy on the ramp after the flight
arrived and immediately notified airport security. "Our primary concern
now is for the wellbeing of the boy, who is exceptionally lucky to have
survived," it added.
In August,
a 13- or 14-year-old boy in Nigeria survived a 35-minute trip in the wheel well
of a domestic flight after stowing away. Authorities credited the
flight's short duration with his survival.
Others
stowing away in wheel wells have died, including a 16-year-old killed after
stowing away on board a flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Boston in
2010 and a man who fell on to a suburban London street from a flight from
Angola in 2012.
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