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Boeing 747 of the Luxembourg cargo airline Cargolux (archive image)
Photo: Harald Tittel/-/dpa
A man has landed at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, hidden in the front landing gear area of a Cargolux freighter.
"The man is doing well under the circumstances, he was taken to a hospital," said the Dutch military police responsible for border control, the Koninklijke Marechausse, on Sunday.
A spokeswoman said the man's nationality and age had not yet been determined because "of course his health was our first concern".
It was "definitely very unusual for someone to survive the cold at such an altitude - very, very unusual".
Actually, there are only rarely stowaways trying to get to the Netherlands in this way.
But some people from Nigeria and Kenya have already tried.
Some of them fell out of the machine during takeoff or landing, others died of hypothermia or lack of oxygen.
Last year, for example, the body of a Nigerian man was found in the landing gear of a plane that had landed at Schiphol.
When the man hid is unclear
Cargolux confirmed in an email to Reuters news agency that there was a stowaway on the plane operated by Cargolux Italia, but "we cannot comment further until the authorities and the airline have completed their investigation".
The only Cargolux cargo plane to land at Schiphol on Sunday was a Boeing 747 arriving from Johannesburg with a stopover in Nairobi, according to the airport's website and flight tracker data.
It is unclear whether the man got caught in the landing gear in South Africa or Kenya.
According to Deutsche Welle, it is assumed that he had already hidden in the Boeing in Johannesburg.
The airport operators in Amsterdam did not want to comment on the incident.
pbe/Reuters