Jet Stowaway Expected to Return to Tahiti Today
The Tahitian man who arrived in Los Angeles in the wheel well of an Air France jumbo jet is expected to return home today as a passenger on the airline, days after he suffered severe hypothermia and frost bite to make the overseas trip.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service has ordered the airline to put the man on the next flight back to Tahiti or face a $5,000 fine. Although French and U.S. immigration officials have confirmed the man’s identity, they have refused to make it public.
Authorities say that on his arrival back home, the man likely will be questioned by Tahitian police on how he skirted airport and airline security to hide inside the Paris-bound plane.
It hasn’t been determined whether the man will face prosecution, a spokesman with the French consulate said Tuesday.
The man was pulled from the wheel well of Air France flight 71 around 8 p.m. on Thursday after airline mechanics spotted him there. He had traveled for more than seven hours inside the unheated and unpressurized landing gear.
The man withstood temperatures of 50 below zero for several hours and arrived with a body temperature of 79 degrees, which is often fatal. UCLA Medical Center doctors released the man to Air France and INS officials on Monday and he was taken to a hotel in Los Angeles until his departure.
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