Q&A: How a Stowaway Survived a Plane Trip in a Wheel Well
An aerospace physiologist describes how a five-hour trip in extreme cold, at very high altitudes, affects the body.
Even those who study the effects of altitude on the human body have been stunned by the story of a 15-year-old boy who hitched a ride Sunday from San Jose, California, to Maui, Hawaii, in the wheel well of a Boeing 767's landing gear. The teenager managed to survive extreme cold and low oxygen levels on a five-hour flight.
To talk about how this young man, still unidentified, could have lived through the ordeal, National Geographic spoke with Jeff Sventek, an aerospace physiologist and executive director of the Aerospace Medical Association.
The Federal Aviation Administration reports that there have been 105 stowaway attempts in airplane wheel wells since 1947, including this latest one, and that 80 of them died.
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