Flight CV 7156 appeared from the cloudy Amsterdam skies towards the Schiphol Airport like giant bird of prey with its 68 metres wide wings and 70 metres long body punctuated by blue and white colours plus a huge Cargolux logo.
As it descended to runway A9 carrying tones of fresh rose flowers from Kenya in its belly, none of its crew members or security officials in Nairobi and Amsterdam knew the amount of diplomatic drama that its landing was just about to unleash.
Once on the ground, aviation engineers rushed to carry out an inspection on the plane’s exterior to establish if it had any visible damage before unloading could start. It didn’t take long before they realized that there was a huge problem.
Tucked four metres up the left rear wheel well was a man who appeared dead. His head was leaning forward and his body appeared tied to some of the mechanical components of the plane’s landing gear. There was no way he was alive.
Up to that point on January 23, 2023 no stowaway had ever survived a nine-hour flight at 35,000 feet anywhere in the world. Infact at Schiphol the three last stowaways in 2014, 2015 and 2021 all arrived while dead.
Very quickly, the officials at the runway made calls to the Schiphol Airport Security department which in turn made a call to on duty ambulance operator Björn Schuijt at the medical base. He summoned his colleagues and drove at full speed to the cargo section of the airport. There they found about a dozen officials led by duty officer Sander Homan.
Homan had already taken a look up the wheel well and made a quick decision that the stowaway was dead. He disbursed whoever he thought was not needed at the scene in order to give Schuijt’s team space to retrieve the stowaway’s body.
Schuijt shone his flash light up from the ground to the wheel well in order to access the situation before making the climb up to retrieve the stowaway. The man was dressed in black sneakers, white socks, a pair of blue jeans and a black jacket. His feet and torso were tied to the plane’s mechanical components. He also had a mask on which made it difficult for the medic to make a proper assessment.
The man was dead. Schuijt was sure. He could however not make a medical conclusion without carrying out tests. He asked for a heart monitor from his collegues and as he was preparing to go up to test the stowaway, someone on the ground whispered.
“I think he is still moving.”
Those six words immediately turned the recovery into a rescue. Everyone who was supposed to make a call for more help in such situations scrambled for their walkie-talkies. The forensic investigation team and mortuary teams who had been summoned to pick a dead body were no longer needed.
Schiphol was in emergency mode. As the person in charge of security at the airport that morning, Homan placed a call to the firefighting department and the Amsterdam University Hospital to ask for a trauma helicopter. He also asked for a heated ambulance and told the hospital to prepare for a special type of patient.
Things were moving so fast now for the team. Minutes felt like seconds, and every second that passed greatly reduced the chances of saving the stowaway.
“Get the stuff,” Schuijt shouted to his colleagues as he started going up the wheel well.
With him, he carried an oxygen bag, stabilisation medicines and an intravenous drip. A firefighter who had arrived followed closely behind him. After reaching the stowaway, he carefully untied two electrical cords that had been used to secure him to the plane’s mechanical components.
Slowly, Schuijt and the fireman lowered the stowaway to the ground where he was received and placed into a waiting ambulance. Moments later, the man was on the way to Amsterdam University Hospital as those left behind were left asking themselves several questions.
Who was the man? How is it possible that the man was still alive after such a long flight from Kenya? What made him so desperate that he chose this dangerous option? Did he know how to stay out of reach of the retracted landing gear? And what was that yellow electrical cable for?
Some of these questions were answered within hours after international media broke the story although some of them got it initially wrong.
“The man had been hiding for more than 11 hours since the plane departed from Johannesburg, South Africa, according to a spokesperson at Schiphol airport and police. While the individual was not identified, officials said he is believed to be between 16-35 years old,” said CNN.
Once in hospital, the stowaway who was still unconscious was immediately placed into an oxygen tank in order to speed up his recovery as doctors wondered how he managed to survive.
Stowaways in aircraft wheel wells face numerous health risks, many of which are fatal: being mangled when the undercarriage retracts, tinnitus, deafness, hypothermia, hypoxia, frostbite, acidosis and finally falling when the doors of the compartment reopen.
The landing gear compartment is not equipped with heating, pressure or oxygen, which are vital for survival at a high altitude. According to experts, at 18,000 feet (5,500 m), hypoxia causes lightheadedness, weakness, vision impairment and tremors.
By 22,000 feet (6,700 m) the oxygen level in the blood drops and the person will struggle to stay conscious. Above 33,000 feet (10,000 m) their lungs would need artificial pressure to operate normally. The temperature could drop as low as −63 °C (−81 °F) which causes severe hypothermia.
Those stowaways who managed not to be crushed by the retracting undercarriage or killed by the deadly conditions would most likely be unconscious when the compartment door re-opens during the approach and fall several thousand feet to their deaths.
The Cargolux plane flew at over 35,000 feet for nine hours yet the man had survived. His skin showed no visible signs of frostbite. He was 1.75 metres tall but at 55 kilograms, he was visibly malnourished.
By 8 am the next day, the stowaway’s vitals had recovered enough for him to be transferred to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). There he found two armed security agents who were waiting for him. The Dutch government had decided that whoever the stowaway was, he was not going to be allowed entry into the Netherlands without a valid travel document.
The security agents did not waste their time. They immediately asked the stowaway who he was and where he came from.
“Benedict,” he answered.
While speaking with a lot of difficulty, he explained that he was 23 and he came from Kenya. He even explained that he had boarded a flight from the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi two days before but he could not remember what happened after that.
“I died there or maybe I died on the plane,” he said.
“I was hoping for a better life,” he said.
Meanwhile, the news about the stowaway had hit the Kenyan security system like wildfire. Just three years before, in July 2019, a stowaway fell from a Kenya Airways plane from Nairobi as it descended into London.
Despite the fact that the stowaway was found with a Sh20 Kenyan coin in his pockets, and a half-empty water bottle belonging to Fresha, a Kenyan-owned company, the Kenyan government completely denied that he boarded at JKIA.
Investigations by Britain’s UK media house Sky TV even identified the stowaway as Paul Manyasi, a worker at Colnet cleaning company at JKIA.
However, with JKIA’s airport’s category 1 status at stake, the Kenyan government went as far as producing a man with the same name who was supposedly serving a prison sentence. Sky TV was forced to apologise and the matter died down on its own.
However, in the background, so many things were happening. JKIA’s security was upscaled with new perimeter fences while the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) passed new tough laws aimed at preventing stowaway cases.
One of the new laws said that persons seeking access to restricted areas will have to undergo thorough vetting including background security checks before being issued with the special passes.
“Every operator of an airport serving civil aviation in Kenya shall establish, implement and maintain a written Airport Operator Security Programme that meets the requirements of the National Civil Aviation Security Programme and these Regulations,” said the new laws.
Yet despite all these regulations and new security upgrades, Benedict managed to outsmart them and hiked a plane to the Netherlands. As he lay on a bed fighting for his life at Amsterdam University Hospital, security officials 6,000km away in Nairobi were blaming each other for the embarrassment he had caused.
“I am afraid that if we do not solve this security problem, we will lose that status,” Narok Senator Ledama ole Kina said in Parliament about the possibility of JKIA losing its Category 1 status.
Pressured by the Kenyan government, the Dutch Embassy in Nairobi sent questions to Amsterdam asking not only Benedict’s identity, how he managed to board the Cargolux plane in Nairobi and whether he had any help. They also wanted him flown back to Nairobi.
Pressured by Kenya, Dutch authorities decided to return Benedict to Kenya to face the law. They wanted him flown back to Nairobi as soon as he recovered. Their wish however got into headwinds after Dutch lawyer Flip Schüller who had previously worked on such cases got wind of the matter.
By then, Benedict had partially recovered. However upon release from hospital, police immediately arrested him. He was taken to a border detention centre awaiting his deportation papers to be signed. Schuler knew what to do. He immediately noticed that Benedict was never officially refused entry to the Netherlands before he was transported to the hospital in Amsterdam, but was detained upon his return to Schiphol.
“I am appealing against the decision to detain you,” Schuller told Benedict after visiting him at the detention centre while emphasizing that the chances that he will be allowed in Netherlands were slim.
On February 10, about two weeks after Benedict’s arrival, Fuller filed a case at the Aliens Court in Amsterdam asking for orders for his client to be released from detention. He also asked for Benedict to be allowed entry in Netherlands based on the technicalities. He argued that the fact that his client was not prevented entry while at the airport was same as admitting him to Netherlands.
In response, the state argued through its lawyers that it had no choice than to allow Benedict in the country because he required medical assistance but there was an intention to send him back to Kenya since he was an undocumented refugee.
“With the trip to the hospital, he was actually granted access to the Netherlands”, the court ruled adding that the unconscious stowaway “was, incidentally, unable to indicate that he wished to apply for asylum at that time”.
With that, the court ordered the border detention facility to immediately release Benedict. It also ordered the Dutch government to pay him 1,700 Euros (Sh267,000) as compensation for the 17 days he had been detained. He was then driven to an asylum seekers centre as his application was being deliberated.
It would be another 15 months before a decision was made. During that time Benedict worked as a cleaner for two hours a day at the asylum seekers centre. Then in September last year, the medical effects of his trip as a stowaway came full circle.
While working, he suffered an epileptic seizure which sent him to hospital. Tests confirmed that he was suffering from tuberculosis which had caused an inflammation in his brain. He was immediately put on a cocktail of drugs that he was supposed to take every day as he attended a specialized clinic.
Because TB is highly contagious, Benedict could no longer work. He had no source of income and he was in a foreign country not knowing whether he would be given asylum or sent back to Kenya where he was regarded as a criminal to face the law. Whatever problems he had run away from in Kenya had followed him to the Netherlands.
“But everything is better than Kenya,” he told his lawyer during those dark months.
And then, on Sunday, January 29, 2023, at 2:14 p.m exactly a year after Benedict landed half dead in the Netherlands, an email arrived at Schuller’s office. It is a message from the Justice Department.
“Asylum application is granted,” read the message.
“The Kenyan will receive an ‘A status.’ He would receive a temporary passport, can work without a work permit and is entitled to benefits if he cannot find a job. In addition, he is entitled to language and vocational education. And there is no question of family reunification, because he is single.”