Bizarre moment man is found hiding in jet's landing gear at international airport in Italy

Daily Mail​

23-04-2025

This is the remarkable moment that a man was found in the landing gear compartment of a parked plane.
The individual, who is not believed to be Italian, managed to enter the undercarriage of an aircraft stationed at Milan Bergamo airport.
He was first spotted by a pilot, who was understood to have notified police about the strange situation.
Two officers are then seen talking to the man, whose identity is still unknown, before he is being escorted away.
Following the episode, the individual was subjected to thorough security checks.
Sacbo, the company that manages the airport, said in an official statement: 'In the early hours of the morning of Monday 21 April, during ground handling operations for an aircraft parked on the apron of Milan Bergamo airport, the presence of an unauthorized person was reported.
'The subject, male, was taken into care by the Border Police for identification.
'Sacbo, as the person responsible for airport security, initiated immediate checks of the surveillance and alarm system that detects any intrusions along the perimeter of the airport grounds, confirming its correct functioning and alert capacity.
'The episode did not have any consequences for operational activities, nor did it create situations of danger to the safety of passengers and airport personnel.'
He was first spotted by a pilot, who was understood to have notified police about the strange situation
If undiscovered, the man could easily have died had the aircraft taken off. The landing gear compartment is not pressurised or heated and the temperatures at altitude are well below zero.
Earlier this year two teenagers were found in the undercarriage of a plane at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
Jeik Aniluz Lusi, 18, and Elvis Borques Castillo, 16 were discovered inside a JetBlue aircraft on January 6 'during the routine post-flight maintenance inspection'.
Paramedics pronounced both teens dead at the scene when they were discovered, the sheriff's office said. The Broward County Medical Examiner's Office is set to perform autopsies to determine the causes of their deaths.
'At this time ... the circumstances surrounding how they accessed the aircraft remain under investigation,' JetBlue said at the time they were discovered.
'This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred,' the airline added.
Last December a body was found in the landing gear compartment of a United Airlines plane after it landed in Hawaii.
The Federal Aviation Administration has tracked 128 cases of people attempting to hide in plane wheel wells internationally from 1947 to 2020.
Over 75 per cent of those attempts ended in death due to the extreme dangers of the wheel well, including hypothermia, oxygen deprivation and the risk of being crushed by landing gear mechanisms.
As the flight reaches higher altitudes, conditions worsen.
Oxygen levels drop significantly, making it difficult for stowaways to stay conscious.
Outside temperatures can plummet to as low as 75 or 80 degrees Farenheit below zero, severely affecting blood circulation.