Dutch authorities discovered a stowaway hiding in the nose wheel of a cargo plane when it landed at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport Sunday morning.
Dutch police say they found a man alive in the front wheel section of a plane – called a wheel well – that landed at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport from South Africa.
Royal Dutch Military Police spokeswoman Joanna Helmonds said the man was taken to hospital in a stable condition, German broadcaster DW reported.
“This is definitely very unusual that someone was able to survive the cold at such a height – very, very unusual,” she said.
The man’s age and nationality is not yet known. But it’s believed he climbed aboard the plane before it left Johannesburg, surviving the 11-hour flight.
A spokesperson for the freight carrier Cargolux confirmed told The Guardian in an email that the stowaway had been on a flight operated by Cargolux Italia.
“We are not in a position to make any further comment until the authorities and the airline have completed their investigation,” it said in the statement.
Flight tracking websites shows that the only Cargolux freight flight arriving at Schiphol on Sunday (local time) was a Boeing 747 freighter that travelled from Johannesburg and made a stop in Nairobi, Kenya.
A spokesperson for the airport declined to speak to media about the incident, The Guardian reported.
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