Daniel Ohikhena is now the world's youngest Stowaway

By a twist of fate, Daniel Ohikhena, the 15-year-old teenager arrested at the Lagos Airport, Ikeja, after he was spotted emerging from the wheels compartment of a plane belonging to Arik Air on Saturday, has made history. Today, he is one of the most ‘celebrated’ youths in Africa as the world's youngest Stowaway. Young Ohikhena’s uncommon adventure is currently the subject of a raging debate across Nigeria and in many other parts of the world. It is one of the most discussed issues on the social media. Since Saturday, even the foreign print media have been awash with reports on this ‘super’ teen, who was alleged to have set out from his residence at No. 6, Ehigiagbe Street, in the Ekenwan area of Benin City, Edo State, without the knowledge of his parents and siblings.


There is little doubt that if the plane had been US-bound, Daniel would not have survived the journey. Denied oxygen at a higher altitude than the one required for the short trip from Benin to Lagos, he would have died of asphyxia before the plane arrived at his destination.
But the teenager is not the only African that has attempted to travel abroad as an aircraft stowaway in recent times. In September 2012, Jose Matada, 26, from Mozambique, died after falling from a Heathrow-bound flight from Angola. His body was found on the pavement of Portman Avenue in Mortlake, south-west London. About a month earlier, the body of a man was discovered in the landing gear bay of a British Airways Boeing 747 after a 9,656km flight from Cape Town to Heathrow Airport.
A story published in the British Telegraph names 19-year-old American, Clarence Terhune, as the first aircraft stowaway in 1928. He was said to have hidden himself on board the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin airship, flying from the US to Germany. In June 2010, a 20-year-old Romanian survived exceedingly cold temperatures inside the landing gear of a Boeing 747 on a 97-minute flight from Vienna to Heathrow.
The stowaway was said to have slipped under a perimeter fence at Vienna Airport before climbing into a wheel compartment on board the empty privately-owned aircraft. In 2009, Habib Hussain, a 25-year-old member of staff at Medina Airport in Saudi Arabia, boarded a aircraft bound for Jaipur, India, on the pretence of cleaning it. He hid in the loo and was only discovered after the plane had taken off. Similarly, a Cuban named Roberto Viza Egües managed to flee the country on August 12, 2000, after hiding in an Air France cargo container at Havana Airport. He arrived in Paris the following day, suffering from exposure, but otherwise unharmed. His application for asylum was denied and he was eventually deported back to Cuba.