Air France Stowaway Improves

A man who survived a freezing, eight-hour flight pinched in the wheel well of a jumbo jet remained hospitalized in good condition early Saturday.

Little was known about the 6-foot, 180-pound adult who was pulled Thursday night from the left wheel well of an Air France flight that originated 4,000 miles away in Papeete, French Polynesia.

Tahitian authorities say the man wore a stolen ground personnel uniform to gain access to the plane.

A maintenance worker at Los Angeles International Airport saw a tattered blanket hanging from the well of the Boeing 747-400 and notified authorities.

The man thrashed about as paramedics removed him, and moaned loudly as he was strapped on a gurney for a trip to the hospital.

The man's core body temperature was 79 degrees when he arrived at the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center, for treatment of hypothermia and dehydration, hospital spokesman David Langness said.

Traveling 600 mph at 38,000 feet, the air temperature would have been about 50 degrees below zero, "and who knows with the wind chill," Langness said.

"His clothes were shredded from the wind and he was covered with grease," he said. "It is a remarkable story. We don't know of any other person whose body temperature dropped this low who has survived."

When body temperature falls below 85 degrees it's usually fatal, but the unidentified man was responding to treatment and could be released as early as Sunday.

"I think you'd have to say this is something of a miracle," Langness said.

The man was moved from the intensive care unit to a bed in a hospital ward Friday afternoon. He wrote to doctors in French and English asking for a cup of coffee, but responded indirectly when asked specific questions about his name, his age and where he was from, Langness said.

Neurological and organ function tests were being run to determine whether oxygen deprivation had affected him.

Immigration and Naturalization Service agents conducted an interview with the patient but would not publicly reveal what, if any, information was discovered, said hospital spokeswoman Elaine Schmidt. Representatives of Air France and of the French consul also called the hospital, she said.

An INS spokeswoman said Air France was still charged with the custody and care of the man.

"This individual, as any individual seeking to enter the United States, needs to undergo an eligibility investigation," said Virginia Kice of the INS' Western regional office. "Air France needs to present this individual for inspection. However, the INS' first concern is the health and well-being of this individual. We are awaiting authorization that he is capable of undergoing an inspection when there is nothing to compromise his health and welfare."

Airline stowaways have survived other such ordeals in recent years.

Tokyo airport officials were amazed when a lightly dressed, frostbitten 23-year-old Chinese ma was pulled alive from a wheel well after surviving a three-hour flight from Shanghai in 1998.

Also in 1998, a man who hid in an Iberia Airlines jetliner traveling from Honduras to Miami staggered from the DC-9's left rear wheel well wearing jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. The 23-year-old was disoriented but not hospitalized.

In January 1999, an 18-year-old Senegalese stowaway survived a five-hour flight to France, where he hoped to find a job. Bouna Wade returned home when he failed to obtain permission to stay. He tried to stow away again in June 1999 in the wheel well of an Air Afrique plane, but was found dead.