According to an official of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), the boy had stowed away on a KAM Air Kabul-Delhi flight (RQ4401), which landed at IGI Airport at 10.20 am (File Photo)
A 13-year-old boy from Kunduz, in Afghanistan, wanted to travel to Iran. So, early on Sunday morning, he sneaked into the Kabul airport, trailed a group of passengers, and stowed away in an aircraft’s rear wheel well — the internal compartment which houses the landing gear — carrying just a “small red-coloured audio speaker”. But, it was a flight bound for Delhi, not Tehran.
For over 90 minutes, the boy flew in the wheel well, miraculously landing unscathed at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in the Capital, where he was seen wandering around by some airport staff. By evening, he was sent back on a flight to Kabul, ending his day’s adventure.
According to an official of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), the boy had stowed away on a KAM Air Kabul-Delhi flight (RQ4401), which landed at IGI Airport at 10.20 am. Dressed in a white kurta-pyjama, he was spotted by some airport staff, who informed the CISF personnel at the airport.
“Upon inquiry, it turned out that he hid in the rear central landing gear compartment (rear wheel well) of the aircraft. He is from Kunduz city, Afghanistan. Subsequently, an aircraft security check was conducted by the airline’s security and engineering staff, during which a small red-coloured audio speaker was found in the rear landing gear area,” the CISF said in a statement.
Inside the landing gear compartment
The boy was then taken to Immigration Department officials at the airport. After detailed questioning, he was sent back on the same aircraft (KAM Air Flight RQ4402) at 4 pm, the CISF statement said.
According to sources, the boy intended to travel to Iran but mistakenly boarded the Delhi-bound flight.
Commercial aircraft typically cruise at altitudes between 30,000 and 40,000 feet, where temperatures plummet to around -50 degrees Celsius. Unlike the aircraft cabin that is pressurised, lack of oxygen makes survival difficult for a person travelling in a wheel well, which is neither heated nor pressurised.
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The mortality rate for wheel well stowaways is estimated at around 77 per cent. Apart from hypoxia due to lack of sufficient oxygen and hypothermia due to freezing temperatures, the chances of fatal injury by the movement of the landing gear as well as the risk of falling out are high.
According to US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data, 132 people tried to travel in the landing gear compartments of commercial aircraft between 1947 and 2021.
There was an incident involving Indian wheel well stowaways in 1996. Pradeep Saini and Vijay Saini managed to get into the wheel well of a British Airways Boeing 747 aircraft operating a flight from Delhi to London. Pradeep survived the long-haul flight, but Vijay didn’t.
