A 16-year-old apparently hitched a ride from San Jose, California, to Maui, Hawaii, in the landing-gear wheel well of a Boeing 767, Hawaiian Airlines Sunday morning . The first sign something was off was when the ground crew at Kahului Airport in Maui noticed a boy wandering the tarmac, dazed and confused. The FBI was called in to investigate how he rode in the tiny cramped compartment for almost five hours, at altitudes that reached 38,000 feet, without oxygen and under subzero temperatures. Experts say,”it sounds really incredible,” said aviation expert Jeff Wise. “Being in a wheel well is like all of a sudden being on top of Mount Everest, between the oxygen depletion and the cold, life expectancy “is measured in only minutes,” Wise said.
The FAA’s Civil Aerospace Medical Institute says a total of 105 people are known to have attempted to fly inside wheel wells on 94 flights. Of those, only 25 made it through, including a 9-year-old child, which is a survival rate of only 24%. One of the flights went as high as 39,000 feet. “Someone could slip into unconsciousness so that the body cools and “the central nervous system is preserved,” said CNN aviation expert Michael Kay. The 16- year old boy told authorities he was from Santa Clara, California, and ran away from home Sunday morning, said FBI Special Agent Tom Simon. Investigators have surveillance camera footage of him hopping the fence at Mineta San Jose International Airport. There’s also camera footage of him walking across the ramp in San Jose toward the Hawaiian aircraft, the California airport said, he told investigators he crawled into the wheel well of the plane and lost consciousness when the plane took off.
There’s also camera footage of him walking across the ramp in San Jose toward the Hawaiian aircraft, the California airport said, he told investigators he crawled into the wheel well of the plane and lost consciousness when the plane took off. In conclusion, i think other than the 16- year old boys health conditions, most importantly this needs to be looked at as a security concern after 911 terrorist attack because if it was that easy for a young boy to get into a U.S aircraft without even entering the airport, it is definitely something that needs to be closely paid attention to at a higher level of security not just in San Jose, Californias airport but nationwide. In addition, “Clearly there’s a big security breach here, which in the post 9/11 world order is a concern,” said Kay, the aviation expert, to get past all sorts of people apparently unnoticed is “a physical feat,” he said. Just when we thought security was a pain in our butts in airport’s in the U.S. we must look forward to higher security measures after this incident, but in the end i rather get a headache going through the airport because of greater security measures being taken, than put more lives at risk for being prone to another terrorist attack because not enough security measures are being taken.