"Being in a wheel well is like all of a sudden being on top of Mount Everest"

Between the oxygen depletion and the cold, life expectancy “is measured in minutes,” Wise said.

But some people have survived. A study by the Federal Aviation Administration looked at 10 wheel-well passenger stowaways between 1947 and 1993, involving flights as high as 39,000 feet. Five people survived. The conditions put them in a virtual “hibernative” state, the report said.

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“For somebody to survive multiple hours with that lack of oxygen and that cold is just miraculous,” airline analyst Peter Forman told CNN affiliate KHON in Honolulu on Monday.

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