Kenyan stowaway survives 19,000ft flight clinging to landing gear in sub-zero temperatures

Teenager would have been starved of oxygen and faced conditions of minus 30C during London to Maastricht journey

An Airbus A330: the boy had climbed into the landing gear bay of a Turkish Airlines aircraft (Getty)

A teenage Kenyan stowaway has survived a flight from London to Maastricht after climbing into the landing-gear bay area of the fuselage.

The 16-year-old boy was found after the cargo jet landed in the Netherlands city on Thursday.

It is thought the youngster may have survived the plane’s earlier – and far longer – flight from Nairobi in Kenya to London Stansted Airport, via a stop in Istanbul in Turkey.

A spokesperson for Maastricht Aachen Airport said: “He had tremendous luck to get through this.”

The spokesperson told the NetherlandsNewsLive website that temperatures within the landing gear bay of the Turkish Airlines Airbus A330 would have fallen to minus 30C, adding: “Stowaways on airplanes are rare, and most people sadly don’t survive the journey.”

The teenager is now in hospital suffering hypothermia but is said to be otherwise in a relatively healthy condition.

Dutch police say there are currently trying to trace the boy’s exact route and will be investigating potential human trafficking links in connection with the incident.

It is not the first time a stowaway has survived a seemingly impossible plane journey.

Themba Cabeka, from South Africa, spent six months in hospital after clinging to the undercarriage of a jumbo jet during an 11 hour, 6,000 mile flight between Johannesburg and London in 2015.

Experts say that, during the journey, he would have been starved of oxygen and subject to temperatures of minus 60C.

He was discovered unconscious in the grounds of Heathrow Airport.