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| Young Daniel Oikhena. |
“Mission: Impossible”.
On 24th August, young Daniel Oikhena embarked on a mission to reach the United States of America by an airplane. He was not going to board a plane through the front door, he was going to sneak in and there was no other part of an aircraft as private and secluded as the wheel well. He geared up with a backpack obviously filled with sustenance and a chapelet fluorescent for protection.
“Time to Catch a Plane”.
While Daniel crouched down in a bush inside the premises of Benin Airport, he saw an Arik Air airplane: the flight W3 544, taxiing down the runway. Believing it to be headed for the USA, he dashed for the plane. Run! Run! Danny, run! On reaching the aircraft, he went beneath it and skilfully climbed into the well of the main wheel. When, the plane was air-borne, he must have said to himself: “Woo hoo! America, here I come”, but unknown to him he was in for only a 35-minute flight and was heading to somewhere else.
“The Eagle Has Landed But Too Soon”.
When flight W3 544 touched down in Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Daniel might have wondered if the shuttle he boarded was a supersonic aircraft. Meanwhile, he initiated the final lap of his journey: Jump out of the main wheel and run for cover!
“Mission: Failed”.
Luckily for young Daniel Oikhena but unfortunately for his futile mission, he did not reach America and was spotted by airport security that apprehended him.
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| Mission: Failed. |
Though Daniel Oikhena may be disappointed that he did not land in America, some aviation experts believe that he was lucky that the flight was not headed for the USA as he would have died from cold or asphyxiation or both. Daniel’s survival in that small wheel apartment has also been attributed to his small body size and the miraculouschaplet he wore around his neck because most stowaways have been crushed to death inside an undercarriage compartment when the plane retracted its tyres.(Retrieved from +VanguardNews ).
Some Previous Failed Stow Away Missions.
- In 2004, a man believed to be a Nigerian was found dead in the wheel well of a British Airways aircraft at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York. (Retrieved from +Seun Osewa ).
- In 2009, a federal jury in Mobile, Alabama convicted one Erik Banjoko of stowing away on a cargo ship that arrived in Theodore. (Retrieved from +Seun Osewa).
- In April, 2010, one Emeka Okeke sneaked into a Delta Airline plane’s tyre compartment but arrived in Atlanta as a mangled dead body. (Retrieved from +Seun Osewa).
- On 19th September, 2010, the airport officials at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos discovered the body of a young Nigerian man the wheel well of an Arik Air aircraft that flew to Johannesburg the previous day. (Retrieved from +Seun Osewa).
- Last year, a Nigerian man’s dead body was discovered in the undercarriage compartment of an Arik Air aircraft. It is believed that he was crushed to death during the plane’s flight from Lagos to New York. (Retrieved from http://www.businessdayonline.com/NG/index.php/news/latest/46626-nigerian-man-dies-under-new-york-bound-plane).
The way I see it, stowing away, particularly in the undercarriage compartment of an aircraft, is more like a suicide mission than an “impossible mission” considering the many dangers laden with it. Hence, the issue of this kind of airport security breach has got me thinking: Imagine that a stowaway was also an extremist (or a terrorist), somehow managed to wear a “jacket of firecrackers” instead of a chaplet, and he decided to warm up his “apartment” by igniting the firecrackers, you can guess what would happen.
