Stowaway

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A stowaway is a passenger who travels illegally by plane , ship , train or bus and, unlike a fare dodger , hides. The term comes from the stagecoach traffic and describes the traveler who is not seen because he is hiding because of unpaid transport fees.

Clarence Terhune, who was the first to fly over the ocean as a stowaway in a zeppelin, after his release with the Reich Minister of Transport Theodor von Guérard on the balcony of the Kurgarten Hotel in Friedrichshafen ; 1928

Motives and Risks

The reasons for traveling as stowaways can be economic and political. Stowaways travel at high risk. Since they are not allowed on board, they sometimes have to go for days without water or food and thus risk death. The journey as a stowaway is life-threatening, even in landing gear shafts or cargo holds of aircraft due to unsecured pressure conditions, lack of oxygen and low temperatures at high altitudes. Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in the USA , the possibility of becoming a stowaway has been made even more difficult by tightening controls at airports. On ships, because of the longer voyage, the risk of starvation or thirst is greater, suffocation from fuel vapors can also occur, or fatal injuries from mechanical forces, for example when rolling up the anchor chain. Cases of ship crews from the last few years are also documented who threw stowaways overboard or abandoned them on the high seas for fear of punishment in the port of destination and of additional costs.

Stowaways are subject to legal prosecution; their entry into ports, airports and means of transport is illegal and will be punished. They also commit stealth promotion . Stowaways who are discovered when crossing borders and who have no right of residence are brought back from most countries in the world at the expense of the shipowner or the airline. According to research by the New York Times, such repatriation costs can amount to up to 50,000 US dollars per illegally entered person from 2015, in the case of delays in the schedule of ships, these costs can increase significantly.

Examples

  • In 1914, the Welsh sailor Perce Blackborow sneaked aboard the Endurance in Buenos Aires before it set off on its trans-Antarctic expedition . Blackborow was discovered and hired as a steward by the expedition leader Ernest Shackleton - on the condition that he would be eaten first if food ran out. The Endurance was trapped and crushed by the Antarctic pack ice. Together with the crew, Blackborow had to hibernate twice in the Antarctic under the most dire conditions and only barely survived.
  • In 1996, three Romanians were thrown overboard on the Taiwanese cargo ship Mærsk Dubai and have been missing since then. A fourth Romanian was kept hidden by the crew. The captain was tried in Canada and Taiwan , but was ultimately acquitted.
  • On July 28, 1999, the Guinean boys Yaguine Koita and Fodé Tounkara tried to fly from Conakry ( Guinea ) to Brussels ( Belgium ) in the hold of an airplane and froze to death on this flight. The letter they carried with them to the "Members and Leaders of Europe" made headlines around the world.
  • On May 9, 2004, two stowaways were seriously injured during landing on the flight from Mayagüez to Luis Muñoz Marín in San Juan (Puerto Rico) .
  • On June 8, 2005, the remains of a stowaway were found in the landing gear of a South African Airways aircraft .
  • On July 19, 2007, the body of a stowaway was found in the landing gear of a United Airlines plane .
  • On February 8, 2010, a body was found in Tokyo in the landing gear shaft of a Delta Airlines plane that had arrived from New York . The man, who wore only jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, had no passport or luggage and was probably frozen to death.
  • In mid-April 2010 a body was found in the approach path of the airport near Zurich . It is believed that it is a stowaway who fell out of a landing gear shaft.
  • On June 9, 2010, a Romanian survived a flight in the landing gear of a jumbo jet from Vienna to London . The man fell out of the landing gear well on landing and was arrested by security personnel.
  • In May 2011, the crew of the freighter Dona Liberta released two stowaways in the Atlantic on an improvised raft made from oil drums and a table top. Investigations against the captain were closed for lack of evidence.
  • On July 13, 2011, airline employees discovered a corpse in the landing gear shaft during the post-flight inspection of the Iberia "IB 6620" flight from Havana to Madrid . The Spanish Civil Guard carried out an autopsy on the body.
  • On April 21, 2014, a 16-year-old boy apparently flew in the landing gear of a Boeing 767 operated by Hawaiian Airlines from San José, California to Maui, Hawaii and survived the five and a half hour flight. During the flight he was mostly passed out, according to media reports.
  • In June 2015, a body was found on the roof of a house in the suburb of Richmond in London . Investigations revealed that it was a man from Mozambique who had climbed into the shaft of the landing gear of an airplane in Johannesburg . When the landing gear was extended during the landing approach, he fell from a height of 400 meters. Another stowaway hiding in the landing gear of the same machine was saved alive.
  • On January 8, 2020, a dead 10-year-old child was discovered in Paris Charles de Gaulle in the landing gear shaft of an Air France plane, who is believed to have climbed into it before take-off in Ivory Coast.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Ian Urbina: "Stowaways and Crimes Aboard a Scofflaw Ship," NYT July 17, 2015.
  2. ↑ Japanese find body on plane from US , BBC News, February 8, 2010 (English)
  3. ↑ Dead passenger extremely difficult to identify. Tages-Anzeiger, May 6, 2010.
  4. ↑ Stowaway: Man survives flight in jumbo jet landing gear. In: Spiegel Online . June 9, 2010, accessed December 30, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Incident: Iberia A346 at Madrid on July 13th 2011, stowaway. In: avherald.com. July 14, 2011, accessed December 30, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Stowaway: 16-year-old survived a five-hour flight in the landing gear. In: Spiegel Online . April 21, 2014, accessed December 30, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Teen survives flight to Hawaii in jet's landing gear. February 21, 2014, accessed December 30, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Stowaway survives flight in US jet's wheel. In: aljazeera.com. April 21, 2014, accessed December 30, 2016 .
  9. ↑ Fatal flight on the plane: stowaway was an orphan from Mozambique. In: Spiegel Online . January 11, 2016, accessed December 30, 2016 .
  10. ↑ prf.at