A 17-year-old foster child survived a 50-minute flight hidden in a plane's landing gear in Siberia, investigators said Tuesday.
The stowaway crawled into a space above the wheel of the An-24 turboprop operated by Angara Airlines at an airfield in the town of Kirensk on Saturday, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
Television reports said he survived the 50-minute flight to Irkutsk in just a light coat, despite temperatures of minus 30 degrees Celsius. Investigators said the stowaway had fled a center for foster children, and the TV reports said he had robbed a nearby store before climbing inside the plane.
The teen, identified as Roman Sorokovikov by Komsomolskaya Pravda, was being treated for frostbite.
In 2007, the body of a man was found near the runway of Moscow's Domodedovo Airport. Officials said he had fallen when the landing gear was deployed.
Just before that incident a young man from Perm flew into Moscow in another plane's landing gear niche. He survived the flight but was hospitalized with severe hypothermia.
(AP, MT)
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