2 stowaways on AirFrance 777 flight to Shanghi

FA Mikey

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Air France Deaths in Shanghai Still a Mystery
A day after two men plunged from an Air France jet and crashed into a small village in Nanhui District, police in Shanghai are still being tight-lipped about who the men are, and how they ended up in the under-carriage of a Boeing 777.

A day after two men plunged from an Air France jet and crashed into a small village in Nanhui District, police in Shanghai are still being tight-lipped about who the men are, and how they ended up in the under-carriage of a Boeing 777.
The plane involved in the incident was allowed to take off and return to Paris yesterday after canceling a flight on Thursday due to the police investigation.
Air France says it is no longer involved in the investigation.
So far we have had no information from Paris about how the two men got into the plane, said airline spokeswoman Zhuang Ying.
It seems like they planed to stow away as they were not ticketed passengers on that flight, she added.
Airline experts said the two men must have died during the 10-and-a-half hour journey from France, not as a result of their fall, which saw one man crash through the roof of a small house while the other landed in a nearby orchard.
Fan Ru, a pilot for China Eastern Airlines, said the men could not have survived a lengthy trip in the plane''s undercarriage.
When planes fly high the temperature in the undercarriage during the journey is about 30 to 40 degrees Celsius below zero, Fan told Shanghai Daily yesterday. No human being can survive in this condition for a long journey.
Fan also said a lack of oxygen and low air pressure would also kill the men, even if they survived the cold temperatures.
According to several witnesses, the bodies of the two foreigners were visibly frostbitten when they were found on the ground.
But witness accounts vary. Some people said both men were dressed in black, including their sneakers.
A few local reports, however, said they were wearing red coats that resembled airport uniforms. One man, according to some witnesses, was holding something that looked like a walkie-talkie.
It''s so frightening. I could not fall asleep, said Ding Xiaolin, 80, who was cooking in her kitchen minutes before a body fell through the roof and landed beside her.
 
Posted on Thu, Jan. 30, 2003

Chinese ID two men who fell from airliner
MARTIN FACKLER
Associated Press

SHANGHAI, China - Two men whose bodies fell from an Air France jetliner in Shanghai last week were identified Thursday by police as Turkish nationals with a history of stowing away in airline luggage holds.

Ramazan Karacoban, 20, and Onur Ozuyaman, 19, are believed to have been stowaways aboard the Air France flight, said police spokeswoman Fang Dinghua. She said they had a record of hiding in airline luggage holds and had snuck into France aboard a ferry a week before the Paris-Shanghai flight.

Fang refused to give other details, saying an investigation was still underway. Turkish diplomats in China and the Turkish Foreign Ministry have also declined to comment.

The two men fell from Flight 112, a Boeing 777, on Jan. 23 as it approached Shanghai Pudong International Airport. One crashed through the roof of a house, while the other landed in a field.

Footprints have been found in one of the compartments holding the jet's landing gear, said Air France spokeswoman Zhuang Ying.

The wheel wells have no heat and are unpressurized, suggesting the two men spent the 12-hour flight exposed to the thin, frigid air of higher altitudes.

State media reports said the bodies were frostbitten, a sign the men may have died before their fall.

While there have been repeated cases of people stowing in airplanes to emigrate to Europe, sneaking into China from Europe is unusual.

Officials had said earlier the men were wearing red uniforms, suggesting they might have been baggage handlers or part of a plot to penetrate airport security. State media reports said they were carrying walkie-talkies.

The newspaper Shanghai Daily said Thursday the two men might have boarded the wrong plane in Paris and were trying to reach a different destination. Flights within Europe last only a few hours.