An airplane’s landing gear compartment
A 16-year-old boy suspected to be Kenyan is receiving treatment at a Netherlands hospital after subjecting himself to freezing conditions while stowing away on an aeroplane heading to Netherlands from London, United Kingdom on Thursday, February 4. The teenager clung on to the airplane’s landing gear for 250 miles (402 kilometers), The Evening Standard says. He was subjected to extreme cold conditions while 19,000 feet above the sea level. The boy was discovered when the aeroplane — a Turkish Airlines cargo flight — landed at the Maastricht Airport in Beek Town, Limburg Province in southeastern Netherlands. It took the Airbus A330 one hour to arrive in Beek from London Stansted. The stowaway was immediately taken to hospital and diagnosed with hypothermia, a medical emergency that occurs when one’s body loses heat faster than it can produce heat, causing a dangerously low body temperature. A spokesman for airport told DutchNews.nl the teen “had tremendous luck to get through this”. According to a tweet from the Dutch Royal Marechaussee, a police branch of the Netherlands armed forces, the teenager is relatively well considering his ordeal.
The Evening Standard has identified the nationality of the teenager as Kenyan. The Dutch police said authorities would be investigating potential human trafficking links in connection with the stowaway, who was discovered in the space next to the aircraft landing gear. According to Dutch aviation publication, Lucktvaart Nieeus, the only cargo flight to land from London at Maastricht Airport in Limburg on Thursday was TK6305, a Turkish Airlines Airbus A330 Freighter. The day before, the aircraft had flown to London Stansted from Nairobi, Kenya, via Istanbul. A spokesperson for Stansted Airport said the plane originally departed from Nairobi in Kenya to Istanbul, then on to Stansted before heading to Maastricht. They added there was nothing to suggest the 16-year-old entered the plane at Stansted. The flight distance between Nairobi and Netherlands is 6,680 kilometers, and the flight time is at least 12 hours. – k24tv.co.ke