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Aircraft Stowaways

Another case.

A man has been taken to intensive care after he was found in the undercarriage of a plane that flew from Algeria to France, French authorities said.

The man was found in the landing gear compartment by staff after it had flown a two-and-a-half-hour flight from Oran to Paris's Orly airport. An airport source told AFP news agency he was suffering from severe hypothermia when he was found. He was not carrying any ID, prosecutors said, so his age is unclear.

Some French reports say he is believed to be aged between 20 and 30, while others say he is as young as 15. He was transported to Henri-Mondor hospital in Créteil, the local prosecutor's office said.

There are serious risks associated with trying to travel in the undercarriage of a plane. During the flight, temperatures can drop to as low as -63C (-81F), bringing on hypothermia. A lack of oxygen is also a lethal danger.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67844550
 
There are several threads that mention the guy who went from Copenhagen to Los Angeles without a ticket. More has come out about this. It's astounding how he got away with it. I figured this was the best place for it.

In November, a “Russian economist” without a boarding pass:

  • was caught by airport security in Copenhagen
  • had two passports confiscated by police because he was on an expired visa and didn't have a ticket
  • was allowed to wander unmonitored around an international airport terminal
  • unsuccessfully tried to sneak onto a flight to Bangkok using a “piece of paper written in Russian”
  • stayed overnight in the terminal
  • tried to board another flight to London the next morning and was turned away again
  • still was not detained
  • successfully snuck onto a flight to Los Angeles without any travel documents
  • tried to sit in business class
  • scammed his way into two meals by repeatedly changing the seat he was in
The article requires a login so here is some more.

In its new filings, the government alleges that Ochigava took the metro to Copenhagen airport on the afternoon of November 3. “Although defendant was not a ticketed passenger on any flight departing that day, airport surveillance footage showed defendant tailgating an unsuspecting passenger through a security turnstile to enter ‘Finger C,’ a terminal for non-Schengen [international flights out of Europe] departures,” the filing says. “Danish border police later processed defendant and determined that he was a Schengen overstay on his Israeli passport and did not have any stamps or visas in his Russian passport.”

The filing says he did not have any boarding pass for any flight, and that Danish police seized both of his passports and ordered him to stay in the terminal until further notice. Ochigava did not stay in the terminal. Ochigava attempted to board a Scandinavian airlines flight to Bangkok using “a Russian identification document and a piece of paper written in Russian.” He was turned away by gate attendants. He then spent the night in the terminal and tried to board a flight to London the next morning, but wasn’t allowed to board. Apparently during all of this time, Ochigava was allowed to continue roaming freely in the terminal, which, in a later document, the feds and the airline express frustration about.

Ochigava then successfully boarded a flight to LAX without a ticket. The filing doesn’t explain specifically how he was able to do this, but emails between US and European law enforcement and the airline say “he then likely tailgated at the boarding gate.”
https://www.404media.co/russian-eco...k-onto-flight-to-lax-without-a-ticket-anyway/
 
There are several threads that mention the guy who went from Copenhagen to Los Angeles without a ticket. More has come out about this. It's astounding how he got away with it. I figured this was the best place for it.

In November, a “Russian economist” without a boarding pass:

  • was caught by airport security in Copenhagen
  • had two passports confiscated by police because he was on an expired visa and didn't have a ticket
  • was allowed to wander unmonitored around an international airport terminal
  • unsuccessfully tried to sneak onto a flight to Bangkok using a “piece of paper written in Russian”
  • stayed overnight in the terminal
  • tried to board another flight to London the next morning and was turned away again
  • still was not detained
  • successfully snuck onto a flight to Los Angeles without any travel documents
  • tried to sit in business class
  • scammed his way into two meals by repeatedly changing the seat he was in
The article requires a login so here is some more.

In its new filings, the government alleges that Ochigava took the metro to Copenhagen airport on the afternoon of November 3. “Although defendant was not a ticketed passenger on any flight departing that day, airport surveillance footage showed defendant tailgating an unsuspecting passenger through a security turnstile to enter ‘Finger C,’ a terminal for non-Schengen [international flights out of Europe] departures,” the filing says. “Danish border police later processed defendant and determined that he was a Schengen overstay on his Israeli passport and did not have any stamps or visas in his Russian passport.”

The filing says he did not have any boarding pass for any flight, and that Danish police seized both of his passports and ordered him to stay in the terminal until further notice. Ochigava did not stay in the terminal. Ochigava attempted to board a Scandinavian airlines flight to Bangkok using “a Russian identification document and a piece of paper written in Russian.” He was turned away by gate attendants. He then spent the night in the terminal and tried to board a flight to London the next morning, but wasn’t allowed to board. Apparently during all of this time, Ochigava was allowed to continue roaming freely in the terminal, which, in a later document, the feds and the airline express frustration about.

Ochigava then successfully boarded a flight to LAX without a ticket. The filing doesn’t explain specifically how he was able to do this, but emails between US and European law enforcement and the airline say “he then likely tailgated at the boarding gate.”
https://www.404media.co/russian-eco...k-onto-flight-to-lax-without-a-ticket-anyway/
The number of things he did wrong almost suggests that he was testing out the system to see what he could get away with.
 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68118500

A Russian man who boarded a flight from Denmark to Los Angeles last November without a ticket, passport or visa has been found guilty in a US federal court of being a stowaway on an aircraft.
Sergey Ochigava, 46, was convicted by a jury in a California court on Friday.
Officials arrested Ochigava at the LA airport after they could not find any record of him being booked on a flight or of him applying for a visa.
He has been in custody since November, and faces up to five years in prison.
 
There's a Billy Connolly sketch about this; Connolly begins with random observations about travelling by air, and then embellishes a story allegedly told to him by a hospital nurse about the mystery guy found at the bottom of a shallow crater in an upmarket suburb of Edinburgh, where people are posh and Glasgow accents are somewhat looked down on.

The Edinburgh householder then rings 999, and politely expresses a wish for the authorities to deal with it quickly, as it's frightening the children and he's worried about the detrimental effect on house prices. Connolly then explains that it was explained as a poor wee guy who lost his grip when the doors opened and the wheels came down. (Billy's alternative explanation is that the aircraft toilet was over-enthusiastic about flushing and emptied everything, including the wee guy who was sitting on it at the time and looking for lavvy paper). Cue song, "Please Help Me, I'm Falling....."

I'll try to locate the sketch.

EDIT - this is a version of Billy Connolly on people and things that fall out of planes.

 
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