Naked
Man Jumps Onto Moving Jet
A Canadian man, angry that he was refused a plane ticket to Australia
at Los Angeles International Airport, stripped naked, sprinted
across the tarmac and climbed into the wheel well of a moving
jumbo jet, officials said on Wednesday. Pilots of the Qantas Airways
flight stopped the plane.
The
man was coaxed out of the wheel well and arrested for trespassing,
said airport spokeswoman Nancy Castles. "This was an extremely
dangerous thing for him to do. If he had continued to cling in
there with the aircraft taking off at over 200 miles (320 kph)
per hour, he might have fallen out and could have been sucked
up by an engine," she said. "If he had survived that and was in
the wheel well when the landing gear was retracted, he could have
been crushed by the mechanism. And if not he very likely would
have frozen to death during the 15 1/2 hour flight at 30,000 feet
while wearing no clothes."
The
man, Neil Melly, 31, tried to buy a one-way ticket on the Qantas
flight on Monday evening, but was turned down because he could
not supply a valid credit card, Castles said. Later, he managed
to climb over an airport fence, topped by three strands of barbed
wire, without injury and was spotted by a ramp worker "running,
naked, full-speed" toward the plane. Castles said a check by authorities
found that Melly had been reported missing to the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police and was suffering from bipolar disorder, a manic-depressive
illness.
