Has anyone survived holding onto a plane?

Among 99 known cases of wheel-well stowaways from 1947 through June 6, 2013, there were 76 fatalities and 23 survivors. It is possible there are additional undocumented cases of successful surviving wheel-well stowaways escaping the aircraft undetected possibly with outside assistance.



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Stowaway survives 11-hour flight to Amsterdam in wheel section of cargo plane. “This is definitely very unusual that someone was able to survive the cold at such a height, a spokesperson for the Dutch military police said.

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Just over fifty years ago Vesna Vulovic fell out of the sky from 30,000 feet – and lived. Vulovic was a flight attendant on JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 on January 26, 1972. The flight was scheduled to operate from Stockholm to Copenhagen to Zagreb and then on to Belgrade with a DC-9.

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-- A 13-year-old North Dakota boy has survived a fall of nearly 100 feet at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon during a family trip. Authorities said it took emergency crews two hours to rescue Wyatt Kauffman after he slipped on a cliff Tuesday and plunged the nearly 100 feet (30 meters) at the Bright Angel Point trail.

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Families of victims and survivors may bring a lawsuit against the airline or aircraft. In some cases, it may be appropriate to sue a parts manufacturer. The federal government provides support to the families of those injured in airplane crashes.

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The flight is far from the first to see a stowaway survive a perilous journey. In November, a 26-year-old man was found in a plane's landing gear compartment at Miami International Airport. Authorities said he had survived the 2-hour and 37-minute flight journey from Guatemala.

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Rules Protect Airline Passengers Here are some highlights: Airlines must return planes to the gate and let passengers off any time a flight is sitting on the tarmac for three hours (domestic flights). Airlines must provide passengers with adequate food and water within the first two hours of any tarmac delay.

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The NTSB says that despite more people flying than ever, the accident rate for commercial flights has remained the same for the last two decades, and the survivability rate is a high 95.7 percent.

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It is rare that stowaways survive flights because of the low oxygen levels in wheel storage compartments and the extreme cold as the aircraft climbs to cruising altitude. In the past five years, Dutch authorities have discovered seven stowaways in the Netherlands. Two survived, according to Lieutenant Hofman.

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A woman is sharing the story of her miraculous survival after tumbling 200 feet down one of Southern California's tallest mountain peaks. The terrifying fall left Ruth Woroniecki, 40, from Thornton, Colorado, with a long road to recovery ahead, but she's thankful she's getting a second chance at life.

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