BOY HUNG ON TO JET

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31177, 29 September 1966, Page 13

BOY HUNG ON TO JET

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright)

MEXICO CITY, Sept. 28. A youth flew more than 2000 miles at 34,000 ft in the unpressurised wheelhousing of a jet airliner, and arrived in Mexico City suffering only “airsickness and pains in my eardrums.” Francisco Cuevas Garcia, aged 17, from Queretaro, central Mexico, made the flight from Bogota to Mexico City yesterday wearing only a nylon shirt and trousers. He told reporters in hospital he was almost dis-

covered when ground crew at Panama City checked the wheels during a refuelling stop. There was room to travel standing or lying, “but I preferred to hang on with my arms and legs to supports inside the compartment for fear of being sucked out into space when the wheels were lowered,” he said. Airport officials found him clinging to the fuselage, cold and in a semi-paralysed condition, when the plane landed in Mexico City this morning. The airport physician, Dr.

Enrique Torres Gonzalez, said: “I cannot explain it The temperature, speed and rarefied air would be enough to kill anyone. “Yet he seemed to have no breathing problem, his blood circulation was normal and, although there were signs of frostbite, his muscles reacted normally.” The aircraft flew at 34,000 ft where the outside temperature would be as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit and it maintained a cruising speed of 625 m.p.h., airport officials said.