A stowaway hid inside the wheel well of an American Airlines flight from Guatemala for nearly 3 hours before arriving at Miami International Airport on Saturday, according to officials.
The 26-year-old was apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol before he was transported to a local hospital for treatment, officials told the Miami Herald. The man “attempted to evade detection in the landing gear compartment of an aircraft arriving from Guatemala,” according to the agency.
Video obtained by social media account Only in Dade shows employees wearing American Airlines vests help the disheveled unsanctioned passenger sit down and offer him some water. The video shows the tiny mechanical compartment where the man — wearing jeans, a jacket and boots — had hid himself.
“Poor man. He just got here. Let him sit. Water! Bring water for him,” the person recording can be heard saying in a video in Spanish. “Are you okay? How do you feel?”
“Yeah, he survived. He survived,” one of the workers said in English while talking on a cellphone.
“Persons are taking extreme risks when they try to conceal themselves in confined spaces such as an aircraft,” CBP said in a statement. “This incident remains under investigation.”
The man, who was reportedly taken to Jackson memorial Hospital, was airborne for roughly 2 hours and 50 minutes on American Airlines international flight 1182 from Guatemala City to Miami, hidden in a landing gear compartment of the plane, Miami-Dade Aviation Department Communications Director Greg Chin told The Herald.
The flight landed at just after 10 a.m. on Saturday.
The flight was “met by law enforcement due to a security issue,” American airlines said in a statement.
“We are working with law enforcement in their investigation,” the airline added. Miami-Dade Police also said they would be assisting CBP in its investigation, the paper reported.
It’s unclear how the unidentified man survived or got into the landing gear compartment.
At the average cruising altitude for a commercial flight — between 30,000 and 40,000 feet — temperature ranges from -40° F to -70° F, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
But security consultant Luis Chinchilla told a Spanish-language Guatemalan outlet that the spot the man stashed himself from the flight may have had “tolerable air.” “I imagine that all that part where the landing gear goes does not have the same pressurization as the area where the passengers go,” he reportedly said. “On airplanes, for example, the luggage area has certain conditions. However, they must also have a part of the compartments where they carry pets, there it is a more tolerable air.”
Still, Chinchilla was surprised by the incident.
“It is the first time I have heard of a case like this,” he said, according to LaHora.gt.
