A man was found dead in the landing gear of a KLM plane at Schiphol Airport on Monday, April 17. This was confirmed by the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee.
As the AD reports, the man was hiding in the aircraft’s wheel arch and is believed to have died of hypothermia. The Marechaussee rules out a crime.
The Dutch Koninklijke Marechaussee (Royal Marechaussee) is the national gendarmerie force of the Netherlands, performing military and civilian police duties.
Origin unclear
The aircraft on which the victim was found had flown from Canada to Amsterdam.
Before that, the plane had made a stop in Lagos, Nigeria, among other places.
It remains unclear where the man climbed into the plane’s wheel arch, but further investigation is being done to find out the exact circumstances of the case.
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Incidents like this one often have the same outcome, a spokesperson from the Marechaussee tells AD, and most stowaways don’t survive their journeys.
On long flights like the one from Canada to Schiphol, the wheel well can reach a temperature of -50 degrees Celsius and, due to the high altitude, there is too little oxygen to survive.
Not a singular incident
While this may sound like an extraordinary occurrence, it’s sadly more common than you would think. To flee from their country of origin, more and more people hide in planes’ landing gear.
In fact, two similar accidents have occurred in the Netherlands in recent years. In 2021, a deceased man was found dead in the wheel well of a plane from Nigeria to Schiphol.
In 2022, a man survived an 11-hour flight from South Africa to Schiphol Airport. He was taken to the hospital with severe symptoms of hypothermia and later applied for asylum in the Netherlands.
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