Loader who fell asleep in aircraft cargo compartment not first to fly with bags

Loader who fell asleep in aircraft cargo compartment not first to fly with bags

Manju.V@timesgroup.com

Mumbai:17.12.2021

The IndiGo loader who fell asleep inside an aircraft cargo compartment and flew from Mumbai to Abu Dhabi on Sunday wasn’t the first passenger to fly among bags and containers. Six years ago, a similar incident had occurred in the US, when a ramp worker involuntarily ended up flying from Seattle to Los Angeles in the cargo compartment of an Alaska Airlines aircraft.

For the Mumbai airport too, a human travelling in a cargo compartment wasn’t a first. In mid-1960s, Australian former athlete Reg Spiers “posted” himself and flew in a cargo box from England to Australia inside an Air India aircraft as he didn’t have money to buy an air ticket. “The A320 aircraft cargo hold is pressurised and temperature-controlled. Had the cargo hold not been unpressurised, the temperature inside would have touched minus 45-50 degree Celsius during cruise,” said a senior pilot. IndiGo flight 6E-1835 had departed around 3am, and the loader is said to have fallen asleep in baggage compartment one.

But the most bizarre journey in cargo hold was the one voluntarily undertaken by Spiers. The cash-strapped athlete had taken up a job in the airport export cargo section where he saw livestock being transported in the cargo hold and the use of shipping fee payment-ondelivery system.

He had a cargo box built to airline specifications which allowed him to lay on his back with knees bent. He packed tinned food, a torch, a blanket and a bottle of water and another one to pee, according to a BBC report. He endured a 24-hour delay in London due to fog, but let himself out after the aircraft took-off. After Paris, the next stop was ‘Bombay’ where the baggage handlers put the box upside down and left it in the sun for four hours. He sweated through it, but stayed put. Eventually he was put into another aircraft bound for Perth. His journey made headlines. But the sweet ending was by Air India. The airline did not charge him the shipping fee.