California runaway teen survives flight to Hawaii in plane's wheel well

boing
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I think that is skewed by short lower-altitude localish flights though.

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Keep in mind, the ones who make it and escape unnoticed are not inclined to report their success to the FAA, so the survival rate could be even higher.

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though, generally they are in torpor for quite some time after reviving. which is to say, useless for a while.

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Low altitude local flights would tend to be on smallish planes with small wheel wells though. I wouldn’t want to try to squeeze into the wheel well of a CRJ or Bombardier.

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Maybe he just wanted more leg room.

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“The FBI is questioning him.”

Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

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luck, really. The extreme cold and unconsciousness decrease the body’s need for oxygen, but most people don’t survive the old stowaway in the wheel well trick - so - luck.

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though, generally they are in torpor for quite some time after reviving. which is to say, useless for a while.

That’s part of the reason why this is so interesting. Apparently the staff of Hawaiian Airlines found him walking around the ramp area. Which seems a bit less than a state of torpor. This kid must have some awesome genes.

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Would it be possible to take a hit off the wheel’s stem valve every once in a while?
Edit: since he was unconscious, I guess not relevant…
Edit2: they fill the tires with nitrogen, so doubly non-relevant.

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Outwitting people who are trying to stop you from doing things is a skill many kids learn on the street. Learning that there isn’t enough air and heat to survive in an airplane wheel well during flight is something that is taught in class.

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And apparently his travel costs will be quite low to get to those peaks…

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I often feel the same way after a long flight.

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The fisheye lens makes it a bit hard to see, but it looks like there is a fair bit of room in there, assuming you have round wheels, not square ones.

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If this were the first and only time someone had pulled this stunt, this would be moderately convincing. But there are a number of other cases, so apparently the handwaving argument for impossibility is false.

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Security video from San Jose’s Mineta International Airport indicates the teen was able to breach security and climb undetected into the wheel well of Hawaiian Airlines Flight 45.

Well… if there is security video, then he wasn’t undetected. There was just a failure to monitor the security cameras.

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Except that sneaking back out necessarily occurs after you’ve spent hours in a cramped position at freezing temperatures deprived of oxygen.

It’s a lot easier to get past security before you have to endure all of that unpleasantness.

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I wonder if it would be possible to reliably survive stowing away in a wheel well if you came prepared, wearing some serious winter gear and a tank of O2.

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In Hawaii, the airports are exceedingly open-air. If this kid had sense, he would have been able to just stash himself behind a parked piece of equipment and wait until the activity stopped, then look for a way out. But he was probably dazed from the freezing temps, which is probably why they found him.

Sneaking into and out of an airport on Maui would not be that hard. I just looked on google maps. There are a bunch of places to sneak around the side and either climb a dumpster and then throw your sweatshirt over the barbed wire and scramble over, or climb a tree and jump down onto the other side. So he must have been impaired when they caught him.

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You’d probably like this:

…I couldn’t find the one where he shows viewers how to sneak into Disneyworld… funny, that.