Dead Body Found At NRT In Belly Of DL 59
#1
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Dead Body Found At NRT In Belly Of DL 59
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/4703488/
Incident: Delta Airlines B772 at Tokyo on Feb 7th 2010, stowaway found dead
"A Delta Airlines Boeing 777-200, registration N867DA performing flight DL-59 (dep Feb 6th) from New York JFK,NY (USA) to Tokyo Narita (Japan) with officially 193 people on board, had seemingly performed an uneventful flight and landed safely.
In a post flight inspection a mechanics found a dead black male stowaway in the left main gear bay.
Japanese Police have opened an investigation and currently assume, that the person got into the gear bay in New York and froze to death and/or died from hypoxia. No injuries have been found."
Ok I'm not a pilot or anything (just a passenger who's a fan of Delta, it's global network and a nice Skymiles account converted from WorldPerks) but I was curious to know HOW THIS CAN HAPPEN in this day and *age*? This is a *SERIOUS* security lapse considering what happened recently in December. Thank god this was only a stowaway and nothing more serious. My personal opinion is that this guy didn't get on in JFK (or else there would be a serious security lapse in JFK) but someone suggested in the airliners.net thread Africa as that's where the plane was possibly scheduled previously (772ER) and where historically there's been previous stowaways. Someone looked up the previous public schedule from Delta.com (not confirmed, if someone can confirmed using more reliable sources like ACARS, Deltamatic, etc...) and it's the following:
DL53 LOS ATL 1035pm 530am +1
DL190 ATL JFK 740am 955am
DL59 JFK NRT 1240pm 500pm +1
So the theory so far is that the poor guy go on in Lagos and didn't get detected until a mechanic inspection 2 flights later in Japan (missed in both Atlanta and JFK).
My suggestions:
*Change the pre-flight SOP to include inspections of ALL AREAS of the aircraft where a person can potentially hide
*Someone on the a.net forum suggested increasing security at Lagos and all the other airports in Africa where Delta flies.
Opinions?
Incident: Delta Airlines B772 at Tokyo on Feb 7th 2010, stowaway found dead
"A Delta Airlines Boeing 777-200, registration N867DA performing flight DL-59 (dep Feb 6th) from New York JFK,NY (USA) to Tokyo Narita (Japan) with officially 193 people on board, had seemingly performed an uneventful flight and landed safely.
In a post flight inspection a mechanics found a dead black male stowaway in the left main gear bay.
Japanese Police have opened an investigation and currently assume, that the person got into the gear bay in New York and froze to death and/or died from hypoxia. No injuries have been found."
Ok I'm not a pilot or anything (just a passenger who's a fan of Delta, it's global network and a nice Skymiles account converted from WorldPerks) but I was curious to know HOW THIS CAN HAPPEN in this day and *age*? This is a *SERIOUS* security lapse considering what happened recently in December. Thank god this was only a stowaway and nothing more serious. My personal opinion is that this guy didn't get on in JFK (or else there would be a serious security lapse in JFK) but someone suggested in the airliners.net thread Africa as that's where the plane was possibly scheduled previously (772ER) and where historically there's been previous stowaways. Someone looked up the previous public schedule from Delta.com (not confirmed, if someone can confirmed using more reliable sources like ACARS, Deltamatic, etc...) and it's the following:
DL53 LOS ATL 1035pm 530am +1
DL190 ATL JFK 740am 955am
DL59 JFK NRT 1240pm 500pm +1
So the theory so far is that the poor guy go on in Lagos and didn't get detected until a mechanic inspection 2 flights later in Japan (missed in both Atlanta and JFK).
My suggestions:
*Change the pre-flight SOP to include inspections of ALL AREAS of the aircraft where a person can potentially hide
*Someone on the a.net forum suggested increasing security at Lagos and all the other airports in Africa where Delta flies.
Opinions?
#2
Happens to other airlines as well - departing from all sorts of countries.
My opinion is that gear wells are pretty dark places. The flight left LOS at night, so the preflight was done at night. Looking for a black man in a dark wheel well at night seems like a tough find.
After takeoff, the man was probably pretty cold, so he scrunched up as small as he could (also, seeing six main wheel tires coming at you would make me try to be pretty small too).
Has the guy from airliners.net been to Lagos? How would he "increase security" there? These are big airports to protect.
I feel bad for the guy - life must of been pretty rough for him to want to leave Nigeria that way.
My opinion is that gear wells are pretty dark places. The flight left LOS at night, so the preflight was done at night. Looking for a black man in a dark wheel well at night seems like a tough find.
After takeoff, the man was probably pretty cold, so he scrunched up as small as he could (also, seeing six main wheel tires coming at you would make me try to be pretty small too).
Has the guy from airliners.net been to Lagos? How would he "increase security" there? These are big airports to protect.
I feel bad for the guy - life must of been pretty rough for him to want to leave Nigeria that way.
#3
Where do people get the idea you can do this? That would not be survivable at all on any flight longer than an hour or higher than about FL300.
Hypothermia and Hypoxia would be in a race to kill you...
Hypothermia and Hypoxia would be in a race to kill you...
#4
I'm pretty confident anyone desperate enough to attempt this isn't well-versed on the effects of hypothermia and hypoxia. They just want to leave Nigeria.
#5
To the original poster,
Remember that the 777 gear bays are a very large place, and much of the space is covered up by the large doors that close once the gear is down and locked.
If anyone somehow found their way deep into there, I cannot see how they could be detected.
I believe they follow behind the aircraft in LOS once it's moving on the taxiway with FLIR to ensure no one runs up and jumps onto the gear. No stopping allowed during taxi, either.
This stuff happens quite frequently around the world... several times a year on various well known airlines.
Remember that the 777 gear bays are a very large place, and much of the space is covered up by the large doors that close once the gear is down and locked.
If anyone somehow found their way deep into there, I cannot see how they could be detected.
I believe they follow behind the aircraft in LOS once it's moving on the taxiway with FLIR to ensure no one runs up and jumps onto the gear. No stopping allowed during taxi, either.
This stuff happens quite frequently around the world... several times a year on various well known airlines.
#6
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Joined APC: Feb 2007
Position: FO
Posts: 3,032
Anyways, desperate times lead people to do desperate things. Like build a raft of tires and try to float to the US from Cuba (I'd take my chances with the plane over the sharks), or stow away in a plane.
This type of thing seems to happen a couple times a year, I'm sure it happens much more than we are ever aware of.
People think of these giant planes like ships...just stow away in the belly and hop out when you get to where you want to go. Unfortunately, there is much more to the equation.
T
#7
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Joined APC: Aug 2008
Posts: 503
To Dick Tracy:
"In a post flight inspection a mechanics found a dead black male stowaway in the left main gear bay."
"My personal opinion is that this guy didn't get on in JFK (or else there would be a serious security lapse in JFK)"
- I think you're onto something here, there's no way a "black male" could come from anywhere but Africa. Please, go on....
"but someone suggested in the airliners.net thread Africa"
Case closed. The, your, overwhelming evidence only leads to one conclusion...yours.
"In a post flight inspection a mechanics found a dead black male stowaway in the left main gear bay."
"My personal opinion is that this guy didn't get on in JFK (or else there would be a serious security lapse in JFK)"
- I think you're onto something here, there's no way a "black male" could come from anywhere but Africa. Please, go on....
"but someone suggested in the airliners.net thread Africa"
Case closed. The, your, overwhelming evidence only leads to one conclusion...yours.
Last edited by Rabid Seagull; 02-07-2010 at 05:24 PM. Reason: inability to harnass this computer
#8
#9
I feel bad for the poor guy. Where ever he was from he probably had an awful life and was willing to do anything to escape it. I doubt he had a knowledge of the risks involved with being a stowaway on an airliner.
#10
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Joined APC: Sep 2006
Position: Retired
Posts: 3,717
JJ
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