Argentine airport employee trapped in cargo hold

An opportunity like this probably only comes along once in a lifetime: the man in question works at the airport in Buenos Aires, his job is to load passengers’ luggage into the machines or take them out from there on a case-by-case basis. One can assume that this isn’t a particularly well-paid job in Argentina either and that this man, who sees thousands of people taking off to promising destinations every day, doesn’t get around much in the world himself.

This man in particular recently unexpectedly traveled to New York – extremely spontaneous, and the flight there didn’t even cost him anything, at least no money. The man himself would never have expected this in his wildest dreams until shortly before departure. A lucky guy, it seems. Because who wouldn’t like that? To fly quickly to the city of all cities on a whim, and for free too.

Well, the Argentinian airport employee in question has his own view of things, namely that he didn’t at all like being on the way to New York. He didn’t even want this trip as a gift. After the plane took off, he banged on the wall of the plane, so loudly and insistently that the captain was finally forced to turn back. Back in Buenos Aires, armed police stormed the plane. They obviously expected the worst.

Instead, they discovered the apparently very harmless man who was on board the plane – in the cargo hold. He was accidentally trapped there while he was still loading the plane. You have to imagine it like in a thriller or horror film: a door or hatch snaps shut, it cannot be opened from the inside, you are trapped. The inevitable will happen if there is no last-minute rescue.

Of course, it’s easy to say if you’re not stuck in this situation yourself: But the question is whether the involuntary stowaway didn’t overreact. In any case, he could have easily avoided the particular inconveniences that affected him on board: he had countless items of clothing in dozens of suitcases to protect him from the cold, and there would certainly have been something to eat in the luggage, as well as one or two books and electronic devices. On top of that, staying in the cargo hold even comes with amenities: no one is snoring next to you, half your body is hanging on the seat assigned to you, and no one smells unpleasant, except perhaps a few dogs. But you can easily keep your distance from them. And he would definitely have been released again.

In any case, it would be interesting to find out whether the man knew where he was going. Did he wrongly assume that it was going to the neighboring country of Brazil, which many Argentinians were suspicious of, and therefore panic? Or whether he consciously decided against New York, but would have behaved inconspicuously if he had hoped to get to Paris or Bangkok?

But the man probably simply had better things to do that evening and didn’t want to jeopardize it just because of a boring flying visit to New York.