Indonesian stowaway hides in plane's wheel well to hitch free flight to 'dream city' Jakarta
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 08 April, 2015, 12:57pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 08 April, 2015, 2:10pm
Kyodo
A Garuda Indonesia flight takes off. The nation's flag carrier said a stowaway from Riau province had managed to bypass security and sneak into a jet's wheel well on a Jakarta flight. Photo: SCMP Pictures
A 21-year-old Indonesian man who crawled into a plane's wheel well and took a free flight to Jakarta barely survived the journey, enduring freezing temperatures at an altitude of 10,000 metres.
The young man, identified as Mario Stevan Ambarita, was able to sneak into the wheel storage compartment of Garuda Indonesia's Jakarta-bound Flight 177 just before it took off from Riau province, reports said yesterday.
His motive was unclear. But Garuda Indonesia quoted his relatives as saying that Ambarita, who lived in Pekanbaru (the capital city of Riau) all his life, had dreamed of going to Jakarta.
For the past 10 days, Ambarita had watched the Sultan Syarif Kasim II Airport's goings-on in Pekanbaru. He also learned how to sneak into a plane by researching on the internet.
He hopped the security fence on Tuesday, climbing unobserved into the wheel well.
Ambarita's caper was discovered when he emerged, wobbling and bleeding, on the tarmac after the two-hour domestic flight spanning about 1,300 kilometres.
At Sukarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, Ambarita was spotted walking out onto the landing field by an airport ground crew member.
“He looked lacking of oxygen. His fingers turned blue, his left ear was bleeding,” said Garuda Indonesia Corporate Communication Secretary Pujobroto, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name.
Garuda Indonesia ground crew immediately turned him over to the airport health post for medical treatment.
According to Pujobroto, the maximum cruising altitude of the Garuda Indonesia plane from Pekanbaru to Jakarta was 10,363 metres, far above the 4,877-metre threshold where the temperature outside the flying aircraft drops to the freezing point.
Due to his weakened condition, Ambarita could not give comment.
He is not the first to survive a flight inside a plane's wheel compartment. Last April, a 15-year-old boy from California slipped through multiple layers of security, climbed into a Boeing 767’s wheel well, then flew for five freezing hours to Hawaii.
Yahya Abdi passed out in the air - where there is low oxygen and temperatures are freezing - and didn’t regain consciousness until an hour after the plane landed in Hawaii, officials said at the time.
He jumped off the plane on his own, according to security footage. He sat on the concrete for a few seconds then walked slowly towards the front of the plane, wobbling slightly.
Somali immigrant Abdi had apparently run away from home and decided to take the closest plane out from Mineta San Jose International Airport in California.
He was later taken back to California - as a passenger in the cabin this time - and brought to child protection services.
With additional reporting from Associated Press
