On Dec. 24, Flight 202 from Chicago took off on time from O’Hare International Airport around 9:30 a.m. local time, according to FlightAware. The body was found following the flight’s arrival at Kahului Airport at about 2:15 p.m. local time on Maui.
Maui Police Department spokesperson Alana Pico told SFGATE in an email that an investigation is ongoing. The department has yet to release the identity of the deceased. A spokesperson for United Airlines told SFGATE that it is working with local law enforcement on the investigation.
The wheel well of the Boeing 787-10 is only accessible from the outside of the aircraft. It’s unclear how the person accessed the wheel well of one of the aircraft’s main landing gears.
Stowaways have previously been discovered in a wheel well of a flight.
The Federal Aviation Administration documented 132 people attempting to travel in the landing gear between 1947 and 2021, with a 77% mortality rate. Although the FAA doesn’t “formally track stowaway cases,” the government agency uses open-source reports to document the phenomenon, a spokesperson for the FAA told SFGATE in an email.
Unauthorized passengers who travel in the wheel well risk hypothermia from the freezing temperatures, asphyxiation from the low oxygen levels and more. In 2012, a man died falling from the sky in London after attempting to stow away on a flight departing from Angola. In 2021, a man who hid on a flight from Guatemala to Miami survived.
