

Boy Who Hid in Plane’s Wheel Well Beat Long Odds in Surviving 5 ½-Hour Flight - danso
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/us/boy-who-hid-in-planes-wheel-well-beat-long-odds-in-surviving-5-hour-flight.html?hp&_r=0

======
ColinWright
Not all identical, some simply related, all from the last 24 hours:

    
    
        You Can Survive A Flight In A Jet's Wheel Well,
        But Probably Won't (npr.org)

\--
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7623300](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7623300)

    
    
        Experts stunned by local boy's Hawaii flight in
        wheel well (sfgate.com)

\--
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7622257](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7622257)

    
    
        Teen Survives Flight To Hawaii In Jet's Wheel Well,
        FBI Says (npr.org)

\--
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7622231](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7622231)
(discussion)

    
    
        Teen OK after riding in wheel well of Hawaii jet
        (boston.com)

\--
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7621054](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7621054)

    
    
        Survival at High Altitude: Wheel-Well Passengers
        (faa.gov)

\--
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7620736](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7620736)
(a few comments)

~~~
danso
Boh! I saw the FAA discussion but the document was undated and I thought it
was upvoted out of it pure interest...I hadn't seen this story until I woke up
but didn't really watch the news yesterday.

~~~
ColinWright
Obviously something that's caught a lot of interest - plus it's useful to have
links to different versions and different (but related) stories.

------
nmridul
If it is this easy to climb under a plane, I wonder why they waste every one's
time with those "serious" security checks.

~~~
halviti
Security theater. Providing an illusion of security while acclimatizing the
public to encroachments on their personal freedoms.

I'm more angry that hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars are
spent to train a workforce to identify tubes of toothpaste on a screen, but
anyone at an airport that wants a knife can just order a steak from an airport
restaurant.

It makes me sad that the public can tolerate such ignorance and waste.

~~~
mdmarra
Airport restaurants only use plastic cutlery when they are located past the
security checkpoint.

Edit: US airports. Since this article was about a US airline operating in the
United States I thought that went without saying.

~~~
dagw
At US airports perhaps. It certainly isn't the case in Europe.

~~~
lucaspiller
The Wetherspoon in LGW only provide butter knives due to security reasons. Not
too useful if you order a steak...

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mseebach
It makes me happy that exactly not a word of this article is about panicking
over the fact that he could have been carrying a bomb. Are we (the population
at large) finally calming down enough about flight security that we can have a
rational discussion about what makes sense?

That said, airport perimeter security is pretty high on the list of things it
does make pretty good sense to care about. After all, he could have been
carrying a bomb :)

~~~
uptown
The true lapse that this incident demonstrates is that security cameras were
installed to provide a multiplier for one's ability to monitor an area, with
the added bonus of being able to record what's monitored. Instead of having
100 workers walk the perimeter, strategically placed camera can multiply the
effectiveness of a significantly smaller staff while securing the same area.
But what's happened is that in many instances, cameras are being used as
passive monitors. They're intended to either serve as deterrents or to collect
footage that can be reviewed at a later date if-necessary ... disregarding the
effectiveness multiplier they provided, and instead reducing the overall
effectiveness of a facility's security.

I wonder whether technologies like Oculus might change the effectiveness of
security cameras. A single man could theoretically "be" in multiple places at
one time from a security perspective. And the sense of actually being on-
location, as opposed to having something on a screen that can be ignored or
missed, might return that multiplier to monitoring a location using a network
of video cameras streamed to somebody's headset.

~~~
D-Train
Yeah, CNN posted this morning about how the airport cameras at San Jose
actually did capture/ record the boy jumping the fence and walking on the
tarmac to the plane. Cameras are one thing, but having watchful eyes are
another.

Implementation of more automated surveillance to help SUPPLEMENT (not replace)
existing security guards watching monitors is ideal. It'll be interesting as
security ramps up to include things like facial/ body recognition.

CNN article: [http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/22/travel/plane-stowaway-
security...](http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/22/travel/plane-stowaway-
security/index.html?hpt=hp_t1)

------
robbiep
It's pretty laughable that with all the ridiculous extent to which certain
organisations go to try and make flying 'safe from terrorism' no-one has been
worried about some people sneaking through the high security fence surrounding
the airport and planting their nefarious tools on board.

I guess at the end of the day it is more the perception of safety than actual
safety we are getting

~~~
doyoulikeworms
A useful term that I recently learned to describe this is "security theater"
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater)).

And that is exactly what I think that the TSA et al. provide.

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hazz
I don't see how this couldn't be prevented by having ground crew take a quick
look inside the wheel wells before the plane taxis to the runway. Is it too
elevated to see in easily?

~~~
nwh
Do you check the wheel wells of your car before you drive? The chance of
something being wrong there is so slight that the convenient option is taken.

~~~
anthony_franco
True. But I also don't ask passengers to pass through a metal detector before
boarding my car.

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reubensutton
Unless I have misunderstood something, that article says the mortality rate is
76% for people who do this, making it only a 4-1 chance of success, which
isn't long odds at all?

~~~
jonathansizz
FYI: that would be a 3-1 chance against, i.e. 3 failures for each success
(expressed odds are a ratio, not a fraction).

------
mehwoot
I'm amazed anybody could survive 5 hours at those altitudes- the lack of
oxygen in the air means someone who hasn't acclimatized to altitude would pass
out in minutes.

~~~
mnw21cam
Make that seconds. At 38,000 feet, time of useful consciousness would be
something like 25 seconds.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_useful_consciousness](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_useful_consciousness)

However, it does take a bit longer than that to climb to that altitude.

------
gadders
From the BBC, a story about the people that sadly don't survive similar
journeys and land somewhere in London on the approach to Heathrow:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19562101](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19562101)

------
agalaria
This is shocking. Hight time that the airport security starts checking wheel
well too or put a camera for Pilot to check before the take off.

------
carrotleads
Are we sure he travelled on the wheel?

Lets say this person was found loitering in the area and someone asked him how
he got there and he told he hid in the plane's wheel's.

Most people would term that as a impossibility and decide he got there some
other way.

if he was found unconscious on the plane's wheel, then isn't it a "black swan"
like event that breaks down most of our existing assumptions on the subject of
human endurance.

edit : still have not read news other than headlines and trying to make a
point about perceptions/assumptions.

~~~
droithomme
It's not really a black swan. The mortality rate from wheel well stowaways is
76%. There have been 105 documented cases, and 80 of them died.

Often they fall out of the wheel well when the landing gear deploy and are
found some distance from the airport.

Most people easily survive with only 20% of the oxygen level found at sea
level, but quickly become unconscious and enter a sort of hibernation state.
Then they may slowly succumb to cold, or simply are not awake and able to
respond sensibly when landing gear deploys, or die from complications from
high altitude pulmonary edema or high altitude cerebral edema.

The media angle appearing in some articles that this is some astonishing thing
that has never been seen before and for which there is no scientific
explanation is just the standard media hysteria tactic used to collect
eyeballs and views by making exaggerated claims.

~~~
carrotleads
What is the limit of human endurance.

If earlier it was assumed that -40 c would kill in 5 mins and now we have
proof that someone has travelled at -62 c for 5+ hrs and with minimal oxygen.

Isn't that a black swan like event.

Obviously we can't test for these things but we can find limits through such
incidences.

PS : whats with the downvotes. Do some folks want everyone to parrot the same
line?

------
mrfusion
I'm thinking this is a hoax. I'd like to see any kind of evidence that he was
actually in the wheel well.

If it's not a hoax, it's seems like it would be more of a medical miracle than
people are realizing? There's way less oxygen at that altitude than at the top
of mt everest, plus I've read it got as cold as -65F.

Edit: Tried to explain better. :-(

~~~
mrfusion
Can anyone explain how this isn't a medical miracle, instead of just
downvoting?

~~~
KMag
I suppose it depends on the p-value threshold you assign to "miracle" status.
Where did you estimate his probability of survival? As stated elsewhere, 25
out of 105 people known to have tried something like this are known to have
survived.

The wheel well isn't out in the slipstream and probably stays significantly
warmer than the ambient temperature, both from having a human in there to heat
it and having warm aircraft components nearby. After takeoff, the tires will
be hot from hysteresis losses, and the hydraulic fluid will be hot. I'm not
sure what other equipment is up in the wheel well for easy maintenance access,
but I wouldn't be surprised if the wheel well had several pieces of equipment
providing heat throughout the flight. There's also plain heat conduction from
the aircraft cabin into the wheel well. The cold also helps survival in
hypoxic conditions. Clearly it's not a good idea, but it has been survived
many times before.

Edit: [http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-
photos/photos/1/8/8/17...](http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-
photos/photos/1/8/8/1705881.jpg) shows a lot of the equipment in the wheel
well, which would have helped keep the well warmer than ambient temperatures.

