"Stowaway" by Armando Socarras Ramirez


The jet engines of the Iberia Airlines DC-8 thundered in ear-splitting crescendo as the big plane taxied toward where we huddled in the tall grass just off the end of the runway at Havana's Jose Marti Airport. For months my friend Jorge Perez Blanco and I had been planning to stow away in a wheel-well on this flight, No. 904—Iberia's once weekly, nonstop run from Havana to Madrid! Now, in the late afternoon of June—our moment had come.
We realized that we were pretty young to be taking such a big gamble; I was seventeen, Jorge sixteen. But we were both determined to escape from Cuba, and our plans had been carefully made. We knew that departing airliners taxied to the end of the 11,500-foot runway, stopped momentarily after turning around, then roared at full throttle down the runway to take off. We wore rubber-soled shoes to aid us in crawling up the wheels and carried ropes to secure ourselves inside the wheel well. We had also stuffed cotton in our ears as protection against the shriek of the four jet engines. Now we lay sweating with fear as the massive craft swung into its about-face, the jet blast flattening the grass all around us.
"Let's run!" I shouted to Jorge.
We dashed onto the runway and sprinted toward the left-hand wheels of the momentarily stationary plane. As Jorge began to scramble up the 42-inch high tires, I saw there was not room for us both in the single well.
"I'll try the other side!" I shouted.
Quickly I climbed onto the right wheels, grabbed a strut, and, twisting and wriggling, pulled myself into the semi-dark well. The plane began rolling immediately, and I grabbed some machinery to keep from falling out. The roar of the engines nearly deafened me. As we became airborne, the huge double wheels, scorching hot from takeoff, began folding into the compartment. I tried to flatten myself against the overhead as they came closer and closer; then, in desperation, I pushed at them with my feet. But they pressed powerfully upward, squeezing me, terrifyingly, against the roof of the well.
Just when I felt that I would be crushed, the wheels locked in place and the bay doors beneath them closed, plunging me into darkness. So there I was, my 5 foot 4 inch, 140 pound frame literally wedged in amid a spaghetti-like maze of conduits and machinery. I could not move enough to tie myself to anything, so I stuck my rope behind a pipe.
Then, before I had time to catch my breath, the bay doors suddenly dropped open again and the wheels stretched out into their landing position. I held on for dear life, swinging over the abyss, wondering if I had been spotted, if even now the plane was turning back to hand me over to Castro's police. [Horrified, I watched as Jorge fell to his death; but I hung on.] By the time the wheels began retracting in, I had seen a bit of extra space among the machinery where I could safely squeeze. Now I knew there was room for me even though I could scarcely breathe. After a few minutes, I touched one of the wheels and found that it had cooled off. I swallowed some aspirin tablets against the head-splitting noise and began to wish that I had worn something warmer than my light sport shirt and green fatigues. [By now, they were frozen and covered with ice.]

******************************************************************************
Up in the cockpit of flight 904, Captain Valentin Vara del Rey, 44, had settled into the routine of the overnight flight, which would last 8 hours and 20 minutes. Takeoff had been normal, with the aircraft and its 147 passengers, plus a crew of 10, lifting off at 274 kph (170 mph). But, right after lift-off, something unusual had happened. One of three red lights on the instrument panel had remained lighted, indicating improper retraction of the landing gear.
"Are you having difficulty?" the control tower asked.
"Yes," replied Vara del Rey. "There is an indication that the right wheel hasn't closed properly. I'll repeat the procedure." The captain re-lowered the landing gear, then raised it again. This time the red light blinked out.
Dismissing the incident as a minor malfunction, the captain turned his attention to climbing to the designated cruising altitude. On leveling out, he observed that the temperature outside was [-40°C]. Inside, the pretty stewardesses began serving dinner to the passengers.

******************************************************************************
[Meanwhile, little by little I felt cold, sleepy and had great pains in my ears. With lack of oxygen and cold, I must have fallen asleep. I don't remember anymore.]

******************************************************************************
The sun rose over the Atlantic like a great golden globe, its rays glinting off the silver and gold fuselage of Iberia's DC-8 as it crossed the European coast high over Portugal. With the end of the 4636-mile flight in sight, Captain Vara del Rey began his descent toward Madrid's Bara Airport. Arrival would be at 8 A.M. local, the captain told his passengers over the intercom, and the weather in Madrid was sunny and pleasant. Shortly after passing over Toledo, Vara del Rey let down his landing gear. As always, the maneuver was accompanied by a buffeting as the wheels hit the slipstream and a 322 kph (200 mph) turbulence swirled through the wheel wells. Now the plane went into its final approach; a spurt of flame and smoke from the tires as the DC-8 touched down at about 225 kph (140 mph).
It was a perfect landing—no bumps. After a brief post-flight check, Vara del Rey walked down the ramp steps and stood by the nose of the plane waiting for a car to pick him up, along with his co-pilot. Nearby, there was a sudden, soft plop as the frozen body of Armando Socarras fell to the concrete apron beneath the plane.
Jose Rocha Lorenzana, a security guard, was the first to reach the crumpled figure. "When I touched his clothes, they were frozen as stiff as wood," Rocha said. "All he did was make a strange sound, kind of moan."
"I couldn't believe it at first," Vara del Rey said when told of Armando. "But then I went over to him. He had ice over his nose and mouth. And his color..."
As he watched the unconscious boy being bundled into a truck, the captain kept exclaiming to himself, "Impossible! Impossible!"

******************************************************************************
"The first thing I remember after losing consciousness was hitting the ground at the Madrid airport. Then, I blacked out again and woke up later at the Gran Hospital de la Beneficencia in downtown Madrid, more dead than alive. When they took my temperature, it was so low that it did not even register on the thermometer."
"Am I in Spain?" was my first question. And then, "Where's Jorge?" (I was incoherent and had forgotten he died in our escape attempt. In truth, I couldn't remember much of the journey. I could not even remember how old I was, 22 or 17.)
Doctors said later that my condition was comparable to that of a patient undergoing 'deep-freeze' surgery, a delicate process performed only under carefully controlled conditions. [I went into a state of hibernation.] Dr. Jose Maria Pajares, who cared for me, called my survival a 'medical miracle,' and, in truth, I feel lucky to be alive.

Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls: True Stories of Castaways and Other Survivors. Edward E Leslie
http://www.altitude.org/survival.php