Is Sneaking Onto a Plane Ever Worth the Risk?

Why you should seriously reconsider being a plane stowaway.

In December, Delta reported two stowaway attempts that could give any would-be globetrotter pause. First, a woman pulled off a transatlantic game of musical chairs, hopping from Paris to New York sans ticket. Then, a 33-year-old managed to shimmy past SeaTac security not once but twice.

As if that weren’t enough, authorities found a deceased hitchhiker in the wheel well of a United flight landing in Hawaii on Christmas Eve. Then, on January 6, a JetBlue flight to Fort Lauderdale revealed two dead bodies in the landing gear. While desperate circumstances or mental health struggles may explain these incidents, there’s no debating the countless reasons why playing stowaway is a terrible idea.

So, before you start plotting your own undercover adventure, here are all the reasons why sneaking onto a plane is not just a bad call—it’s downright disastrous.

An All-Expenses-Paid Stay In Jail

For those furtive flyers trying to outsmart security and snag a free ride, here’s a newsflash: the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is not here for your shenanigans. According to the Wall Street Journal, TSA screened 903,991,627 in 2024, up from 5% the previous year, and “the incidence of stowaways in the cabin is really quite low on an annual basis,” says Carter Langston, Transportation Security Administration press secretary. Translation: TSA ain’t got time for hooligans.

“If somebody tries to bypass one of the essential security elements in the TSA checkpoint, by circumventing identity verification stations in an attempt to get onto an aircraft without a boarding pass, to my knowledge, in every instance we’re aware of, that has resulted in the arrest and those passengers and individuals have faced civil penalties,” says Langston.

According to the TSA website, those civil penalties can amount to $14,950 per violation—be it fraud, document falsification, bypassing security, or sneaking through restricted areas. Oh, and let’s not forget the cherry on top: potential jail time.

King5 News reports that the Seattle woman who attempted to best TSA twice was summarily arrested for first-degree criminal trespassing and faces a potential of 364 days in jail, $5,000 in fines, or both.

So, ask yourself—does that sneaky getaway to Fiji really justify an extended, all-inclusive stay in the slammer?

Welcome to the Airline No Fly List

There are two no-fly lists: the federal list, managed by the TSA, and the airline-specific lists maintained by individual carriers. While Langston couldn’t comment on the federal roster, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Fly Rights states that airlines can remove passengers for “safety, security, or health reasons” or in response to unlawful behavior. And just like Santa’s naughty list, you can bet they review these carefully and check them twice. Best advice? Don’t end up on one.

A Fatal Journey

Can you survive in the wheel well of a commercial jet? Technically, yes. Realistically? It’s as likely as a snowball making it through a jet engine.

“I cannot underscore enough how dangerous that is to life and safety because of the very low temperatures at cruising altitudes,” says Langston.

“Extreme cold at cruising altitude, which can drop to as low as -50 degrees to -70 degrees Fahrenheit, could induce the rapid onset of hypothermia,” says Dr. Brynna Connor, a healthcare ambassador at NorthWestPharmacy.com. At that point, you’re fighting to maintain consciousness. Add to that a veritable cascade of frightening symptoms. “A person may experience extremely slow or irregular heartbeat, slow or shallow breathing, or they may stop breathing entirely,” she says. “They might also have dilated pupils, loss of reflexes, or complete loss of motor function, and cardiac arrest.”

If that’s not a thrill ride enough for you, consider the lack of oxygen at cruising altitude, which at above 35,000 feet, Connor says, is insufficient to support human life without any supplemental oxygen source. To put a finer point on it, at that altitude, oxygen levels drop to about 26% of those at sea level. Not even an Everest climber who had trained for oxygen deprivation would be acclimated to that kind of hypoxia.

Blunt Force Drama

It’s a grim reality we can’t ignore. Beyond the deadly risks of hypothermia and oxygen deprivation, stowing away in a plane’s wheel well also carries the horrifying potential for blunt force trauma from the wheel or hydraulic systems. It’s a danger that has claimed far too many lives in unimaginable ways.

Such tragedies are heartbreakingly familiar to residents along Heathrow Airport’s flight path. In 2019, a Kenyan man attempting to stow away in the landing gear of a flight bound for London fell to his death, landing just feet from a resident enjoying his backyard. As the Guardian vividly recounted, when Kenya Airways flight KQ 100—a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner—descended after its eight-hour journey from Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, the landing gear lowered, and with it came a tragic end no one should ever have to witness. A body plummeted 3,500 feet, landing half-frozen in John Baldock’s backyard, destroying his patio in the process.

Life Altering Injuries

In a tragic parallel to the 2019 incident, a body was discovered on the roof of a London home in 2015. The victim, a Mozambican man, Carlito Vale, had attempted a perilous stowaway journey on a British Airways flight alongside his friend, Themba Cabeka, to escape poverty from a camp in South Africa. The pair scaled the fence at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport, embarking on a desperate gamble with devastating consequences: Vale didn’t survive, but Cabeka did—though not without enduring immense trauma.

Cabeka awoke on the tarmac with a shattered leg and severe burns from gripping the plane’s cables, a desperate act that ultimately saved his life. After experiencing homelessness, the Guardian reported that Cabeka eventually was given leave to remain and had moved to Merseyside, England. Today, he walks permanently with crutches and carries the lasting physical and emotional scars of his harrowing journey—including the haunting memory of watching his friend fall to his death.

The Looming Threat of Deportation

For countless individuals desperate to migrate, no risk seems too extreme. But seeking asylum offers no guarantees—and sometimes, even the boldest plans crash-land. Take the Thanksgiving escapade of the aforementioned Russian national living in Philadelphia on a green card, who managed to stow away on a Delta flight by toilet-hopping her way across the Atlantic.

The woman attempted to claim asylum in France, according to the BBC. French law enforcement, however, was unimpressed, promptly deporting her back to the U.S. without so much as an au revoir. Upon her arrival back in the States, the woman was swiftly detained by the New York Police Department and later placed under arrest by FBI agents, according to AirGuide.com. All that work to get to a new land, and she ended up back at square one.

Stowing away may seem like a daring shortcut to a new life, but it often leads to more trouble than triumph. While the age of sail romanticized the term “stowaway,” inspiring a 1920s craze where teens brazenly hopped trans-Atlantic steamers, applying that same spirit of adventure to modern aviation comes with staggering risks. For most, the outcome is a sobering reminder that the skies offer neither refuge nor reward for the desperate or daring.