LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - 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"If he had survived that and was in the wheel well when the landing gear was retracted, he could have been crushed by the mechanism.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 bi-polar disorder, a manic-depressive illness.
aerius: I'll vote for you if you sleep with me. Lusankya: Deal!
Say, do you want it to be a threesome with your wife? Or a foursome with your wife and sister-in-law? I'm up for either.
Not that the rest of it makes much sense, but why on earth would he have stripped first?
"On the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics." -Richard Feynman
Zaia wrote:Not that the rest of it makes much sense, but why on earth would he have stripped first?
If he was clothed, people would think he was seriously attempting to fly to Australia on the wheel of an airplane (ie. Darwin Award candidate). But if's he's doing it NAKED, it is clear he is trying to attract attention.
Zaia wrote:Not that the rest of it makes much sense, but why on earth would he have stripped first?
To show he didn't have a bomb?
Ph34r teh eyebrow!!11!Writers GuildSluggitePawn of ChaosWYGIWYGAINGW so now i have to put ACPATHNTDWATGODW in my sigEBC-Honorary Geordie Hammerman! Hammer!
Cpl Kendall wrote:The article states that he has Bi-Polar Disorder, so he's not exactly the most rational person on Earth.
That's one hell of a high swing, then.
"On the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics." -Richard Feynman
