Chinese boy falls from plane(a free ride ends in a free fall)

China today launched a high-level probe into the death of a boy who fell from the landing gear of a passenger plane during take off yesterday at the Dunhuang Airport in northwest China.

A joint group of officials dispatched by the Northwest China Bureau of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) arrived in Dunhuang Airport and started an investigation on the circumstances leading to the accident.

Business at the airport of Dunhuang, a well-known tourist resort known for its Buddhist grottoes, remained unaffected by the incident, said the airport authority.

The boy, about 10 years old, fell from the undercarriage of a China Eastern Airlines A320 plane when it was taking off about 7.50 am Wednesday, and died at the scene.

The plane continued its flight after the accident and landed safely at the destination of Lanzhou, capital of Gansu, one hour and 25 minutes later. The identity of the boy is still unknown.

The Gansu branch of the airlines said the landing gear is usually retracted about 15 meters above the ground and the boy might have fallen out of the plane from that height.

Officials with CAAC last night blamed the incident on lax safety measures at the airport and ordered a thorough investigation of the tragedy.

This kind of thing happens from time to time. I recall a story of two young Africans (and I mean young, maybe 12 years old) who thought Air France was their freedom bird.

They were found in the wheelwells near the point of death, but on opposite sides of it. I think the French relented and let the surviving kid stay after he recovered in hospital.

Back in the days that Life magazine was a weekly staple in American households, our copy once contained a feature called "moments of truth" which was just another peg for the left-liberal editors to use to gloat over some Vietnam deaths -- but one of the pictures was a grainy shot of a would-be wheel rider in mid-fall. I think that was the end of our family's subscription to that rag, actually. It went out of business some time after that but ill-advised people keep bringing it back.

The problems with stowing away in a wheelwell are manifold.

Volume. A human being just takes up a certain space in three dimensions. Mechanical parts' intrusion on this space can be fatal. In most aircraft, the landing gear retract into parts of the plane where space is already at a premium.
Hanging on. As noted in the article, the landing gear aren't retracted until the pilots are confident that they have a solid rate of climb. Until then, you have to hang on. Even after the gear are retracted, even if they didn't squeeze you like an anaconda, you still have to hang on, because if you fall onto the gear doors, they probably won't hold you. Geronimo!
Temperature: It's cold out there! Jets fly in or near the stratosphere -- but the troposphere contains almost all the warmth needed to sustain life. A wheel well at 40,000 feet is at -65F. Good thick mittens can help you not lose your fingers, but how are you going to hang on? (see above).
Pressure. There is very, very little air pressure here. At altitudes above about 25-26,000 feet, there is not enough partial pressure of oxygen to sustain life. Survivors risk brain and central nervous system damage.

In fact, a fairly common outcome in these cases is that the would-be stowaway (stowawannabee?) expires some time during the flight and is found in a later aircraft inspection, or when he begins to ripen, or falls when the landing gear go down, already a dead, frozen, stowaway-sicle.

There are some aircraft that are better suited than others to attempting this. I will not go into which ones they are for reasons which need no elaboration. As a rule of thumb, however, older machinery is better than newer for this, as engineers have gotten more creative about using space.

Sorry about the kid. But if the lust for adventure is not tempered with a little bit of learning, the sum of your life may be naught but a warning to those that come behind you, and that seems to have been his fate.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

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