STOWAWAYS NOT A NIGERIAN PROBLEM ALONE

The recent but damnable stowaway Late Emeka Okechukwu Okeke, a Nigerian on a Delta Airlines flight from Lagos to Atlanta, has once again underscored the need for airlines to work with the airport authorities to strengthen security surrounding airports and aircraft.

Stowaways generally are people who enjoy a free ride who may not get to there destination alive, because they are ignorant of the technology and the conditions in the plane, and they tend to be pretty desperate to achieve their self desires.

They also do not understand the risk being undertaken, because temperatures in wheel-wells during short flights may sustain life, on long flights that leads to severe hypothermia and acute hypoxia which is potentially fatal.

Stowaways, generally pose no security threat to aircraft, but the fact that they have been able to gain access to planes means there are loopholes in security around aircraft and airport perimeters which can be blocked. It’s generally agreed that, the security of an aircraft is only as good as the airport out of which it operates, and airlines do not have much control over this, while another school of thought says airports and airlines are to blame for security breaches, which probably is the reason airlines are fined heavily by immigration or other government agencies for stowaways found on board whether dead or alive. The airlines are made to foot all related bills such as funeral, medical, feeding, transportation, and related fines.


If a stowaway can get into the aircraft, whenever that occurred, that says a lot about security procedures of that airport and airline, with recent heightened security. A stowaway simply tells us that if you can do it with a body, you could do it with an explosive. Pilot and other personnel conduct aircraft checks for international trips as much as two hours before takeoff, raising the prospect that the stowaway climbed aboard after the landing gear was examined on the ground, therefore the collaborators are within the airside of the airport.

It is not a Nigerian problem but a universal one, on the 7th of June 2005, a man's leg and part of his torso fell from a South African jetliner onto a New York home as the plane prepared to land at John F. Kennedy Airport. The plane was coming from Johannesburg, South Africa via Dakar in Senegal. When it landed at JFK Airport, more of his remains were found inside the wheel well of the aircraft. Cargo airlines are not spared by the stowaways, in an incident involving a cargo plane, a man believed to be an Indian national was found in one of six passenger seats an hour into the seven-hour flight from the Middle East to the Netherlands, the aircraft had to make an air return with the usual concomitants which are delay and expenses being incurred by the airline.

Also information on the web-sites of United States owned Federal Aviation Authority shows 75 stowaway attempts since 1947, on 65 flights worldwide with 55 fatalities, therefore airlines operating international flights in conjunction with our international gateways must overhaul security and conduct background checks on airside employees who are usually the willing accomplice or culprit.