Dead Stowaway on Delta Flight to Tokyo Spotlights Security Risk

(Bloomberg) -- A body found in the landing-gear compartment of a Delta Air Lines Inc. jet that flew to Tokyo’s Narita Airport from New York may spur a fresh review of U.S. aviation security.

Lack of oxygen or hypothermia may have killed the stowaway, said a police official at Narita, who asked not to be identified because of department policy. The corpse of a dark-skinned male in civilian clothes with no identification was discovered on Feb. 7, the police official said yesterday.

The case highlights a possible weak spot in the safety crackdown ordered after a failed attempt to blow up a Detroit- bound Delta flight on Dec. 25. Tarmacs are supposed to be protected against intruders, so a man climbing onto the plane would have breached security wherever the incident began.

“It’s a major concern,” said Douglas R. Laird, a former Northwest Airlines Corp. security chief who is now president of consultant Laird & Associates Inc. in Reno, Nevada. Unless the man was cleared to enter airline property, “somebody penetrated the airport security. They got into a sterile area,” he said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is working with Japanese authorities to identify the dead man, and “we’re trying to figure out when and where he got on the plane,” said Jim Margolin, a New York-based spokesman for the agency.

Feb. 6 Departure

Flight 59 left New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport at 12:53 p.m. on Feb. 6 and landed in Japan at 4:50 p.m. local time on Feb. 7, said Susan Elliott, a spokeswoman for Atlanta-based Delta. The plane was a Boeing Co. 777 wide-body jet.

Delta, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs Kennedy airport, are cooperating with Japanese officials, spokesmen said.

The Transportation Security Administration “is working closely with the FBI and the Port Authority to review the incident and will take the appropriate action necessary,” Greg Soule, an agency spokesman, said in an e-mail.

A 777 has a so-called tricycle layout for the landing gear. One set of wheels retracts beneath the nose of the twin-engine plane, while the two sets of main wheels are located near the root of each wing.

The Narita incident probably involved a stowaway, and wasn’t a terrorist attempt, said Richard Bloom, director of terrorism and security studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona.

‘Pretty Desperate’

At least seven incidents of wheel-well stowaways have occurred in the past decade, all but one ending in death.

“These are usually people who are ignorant of the technology and the conditions in the plane, and they tend to be pretty desperate,” Bloom said.

International flights typically cruise at altitudes of at least 30,000 feet (9,144 meters), higher than the 10,000-foot standard for the use of supplemental oxygen. Temperatures at that altitude can plummet to 50 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (minus 45 degrees Celsius) or colder.

Bloom said the case probably would spur a government review with an eye toward tightening security on airport tarmacs and encouraging airline workers to be more vigilant.

“If a stowaway can get into the aircraft, whenever that occurred, that says a lot about security procedures of that area and the maintenance inspection procedures there,” Bloom said. “If it turns out to be a stowaway, the teaching event is that if you can do it with a body, you could do it with explosives.”

Aircraft Inspections

Preflight checks for international trips may occur as much as two hours before takeoff, raising the prospect that the stowaway climbed aboard after the landing gear was examined on the ground, said Vaughn Cordle, a retired 777 pilot who now runs consultant AirlineForecasts LLC in Clifton, Virginia.

“It stands to reason that the individual was not in the cavity before inspection,” Cordle said. “For a flight that long, you’d be making a really thorough inspection and looking up into the cavity at the struts and hydraulics. There’s almost no way a person could hide from a mechanic or pilot.”

Laird, the security consultant, said the hazards of riding in an unpressurized area of a jet make it unlikely that the stowaway had a connection to the aviation industry.

“Most airport workers, if they have been there anytime at all, would clearly understand the perils of climbing into a wheel well,” Laird said.

U.S. officials increased pat-downs and other screening for international passengers and urged more overseas airports to use full-body scanners after the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt aboard a Delta jet.

A passenger on that flight, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab of Nigeria, pleaded not guilty Jan. 8 to a six-count federal indictment that included charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, attempted murder and willfully trying to wreck an aircraft.

The flight from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport was preparing to land in Detroit when Abdulmutallab ignited his pants leg and a wall of the plane while trying to detonate a mixture of explosives he smuggled aboard, according to prosecutors.