Summary
A body was found in the wheel well of a United Airlines Boeing 787-10 upon its arrival in Maui from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on Dec. 24.
The deceased person’s identity and how they accessed the wheel well, which is only reachable from outside the plane, remain unknown.
The aircraft had previously flown from Sao Paulo to Chicago before continuing to Maui.
United Airlines and Maui Police are investigating the incident. No further details have been released as the story develops.
I am morbidly curious what gets someone first in this situation:
Oxygen. At 10,000 feet the oxygen becomes an issue. A plane traveling to Hawaii would typically fly between 30k and 45k feet. If there is any consolation, that person would’ve passed out and died relatively peacefully before they got cold enough. And they were probably dead within 20 minutes of takeoff.
You can avoid being crushed. And if they are sending the cause of death is unknown at the moment, they were probably not bleeding out.
Yes the cold will be very bad but if you prepared well enough. People survive in all kinds of cold weather. But at 30k feet it can get -50f… so, that better be a warm ass jacket or you would indeed freeze solid. Hypothermia and frostbite are almost a guarantee. And since they can’t move around to keep their body temp up, they would need to have some kind of heater…. I’m gonna say this probably wasn’t something they considered.