The Hawaiian Airlines Teenage Wheel Well Stowaway Who Somehow Survived

On April 20, 2014, a teenager from Santa Clara, California, climbed into the wheel well of Hawaiian Airlines Flight 45 at San Jose International Airport. The Boeing 767 was bound for Maui.

Airport security footage later showed the teenager crossing the airport area and entering the aircraft's wheel well. He remained hidden as the aircraft departed for Hawaii.

The flight lasted approximately five and a half hours and reached about 38,000 feet. The wheel well was not pressurized or heated, exposing the teenager to extremely low temperatures and very little oxygen.

Authorities said he was unconscious for much of the flight. After the aircraft landed at Kahului Airport, the teenager remained unconscious for roughly another hour before waking and climbing down onto the airport ramp.

Hawaiian Airlines personnel noticed him and notified security. He was taken for medical evaluation and was subsequently placed in the care of Hawaii child-protection authorities.

The survival was extraordinary because the wheel well is outside the aircraft's pressurized cabin. At cruise altitude, the environment is incompatible with normal human survival for prolonged periods. The teenager nevertheless survived the journey.

The incident also raised airport-security questions. The FBI and Transportation Security Administration investigated how the teenager had crossed the airport perimeter and reached the aircraft undetected.

Authorities did not initially identify him publicly because he was a minor. Later reporting identified him as Yahya Abdi.

The story is unusual not because the aircraft experienced an airborne emergency—the flight itself continued normally—but because a person was discovered after surviving an environment in which oxygen and temperature conditions are normally lethal.

An FBI spokesman summarized the extraordinary survival with the words, It’s a miracle.

An FBI spokesman summarized the extraordinary survival with the words, It’s a miracle.

Accident Facts

Recorded line: “It’s a miracle.”

Sources

Los Angeles Times, April 21, 2014 — https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-california-stowaway-survives-flight-to-hawaii-wheel-well-20140421-story.html

PBS NewsHour, April 21, 2014 — https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/teen-stowaway-survives-five-hour-flight-hawaii-planes-wheel-well

ABC News — https://abcnews.com/US/fbi-16-year-stows-away-california-hawaii-flight/story?id=23402777

the associated record — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkvMv3ByJw