Jet stowaway survives in landing gear

A man was apprehended at Miami International Airport on Saturday after he traveled there in the landing gear of a plane that departed from Guatemala, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced.

The 26-year-old man, whose name and nationality were not released by U.S. Customs, had “attempted to evade detection” by stowing himself in the landing-gear compartment, according to a statement from the agency, adding that the man was evaluated by emergency medical services and taken to a hospital.

The flight, American Airlines 1182, landed in Miami shortly after 10 a.m. Saturday and “was met by law enforcement due to a security issue,” Alfredo Garduno, a spokesman for American Airlines, said in an email.

The flight was nearly three hours long. A video posted online showed a man dressed in a light jacket sitting down on the tarmac while two workers wearing American Airlines vests attended to him.

“Yeah, he survived. He survived,” one of the workers said while talking on a cellphone.

People who attempt to hide in confined spaces such as wheel wells on planes are taking “extreme risks,” U.S. Customs disclosed.

Temperatures in non-pressurized, non-climate-controlled parts of the plane can drop to 65 degrees below zero, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which has studied the phenomenon of “wheel-well stowaways.”

People who embark on such a journey risk dying of hypothermia, a lack of oxygen, being crushed by equipment or falling to their deaths.

The FAA — which warns against the tactic — said in its report on stowaways that a plane’s wheels initially provide “significant heat.” As the plane enters cooler altitudes, hypothermia coupled with hypoxia can preserve the nervous system, it says, before the descent gradually provides warmth and oxygen.

Still, those who survive can face legal consequences for the trip.

This summer, when the United States departed Afghanistan, several people who had clung to a U.S. military plane in a desperate attempt to flee the country died after they fell to their deaths. U.S. officials also found crushed human remains in a wheel well.

Episodes involving people stowing themselves in planes often involve migrants, illustrating the extreme risks that some will go to in an effort to escape dire situations in their home countries.

In Guatemala, a hunger crisis has contributed to a wave of migration. Across Central America, people are fleeing poverty and violence.

Guatemala’s aviation authority did not immediately respond to a request for comment.