A police officer is recovering in a Dutch hospital this weekend after being hit from Nairobi, Kenya to the Netherlands, by the landing gear of an Airbus A330 freighter.
Authorities found the 16-year-old alive inside the plane and suffering from severe hypothermia, The Telegraph reported. He is currently being treated at a Maastricht hospital after making the 5,000-mile journey.
It is not known how the teenager, who is from Kenya, managed to get inside the landing gear, but authorities said he was lucky to be alive.
While it may seem like a good idea for a free flight, getting stuck with the landing gear of an aircraft often leads to death by exposure. Flights typically spend hours at an altitude of 38,000 feet, where oxygen is also scarce.
“He was extremely lucky to get over it,” a spokesman for Maastricht Aachen Airport told Netherland News Live.