When 2 Indian Brothers, Accused Of Sikh Separatist Links, Hid In Landing Gear Of London-Bound Plane

Vijay did not survive the trip and his body fell from the aircraft during the landing at London’s Heathrow airport. (Image for representation: AFP/File)

A 13-year-old Afghan boy’s “curiosity” brought him to New Delhi from Kabul on Sunday, after he somehow managed to climb into the landing gear compartment of an aircraft.

While the teenager was repatriated to Afghanistan on the same flight, the incident takes us back to 1996 – two brothers from Punjab had hidden inside the landing gear of a British Airways flight at the Indira Gandhi International Airport.

Accused of links to a Sikh separatist group, the brothers were forced to flee from India but they did not have enough money or the visas to get to London.

Hence, Pradeep Saini, 23, and Vijay Saini, 19 – who were car mechanics – took the extreme measure of sneaking into the international flight via the landing gear. Vijay did not survive the trip and his body fell from the aircraft during the landing at London’s Heathrow airport.

SURVIVING BROTHER DEEMED MEDICAL ANOMALY

Nothing short of a tale of survival against all odds, Pradeep endured the 10-hour flight as a stowaway even though his brother could not survive the ordeal.

According to reports, the two managed to infiltrate the airport, evade detection, and hide in the aircraft’s nose wheel well. But they could not have imagined what the journey ahead would bring.

In the aircraft, which was cruising at altitudes of 35,000 feet, temperatures plummeted to -60 degrees Celsius while oxygen levels were dangerously low. On top of the severe atmospheric conditions, the noise from the engines was deafening leading to physical strain.

An NDTV report said Pradeep was found disoriented on the runway upon landing and hospitalised for severe hypothermia, and then taken into custody. Experts deemed his survival as a medical anomaly and said the combination of hypoxia and hypothermia may have induced a state similar to suspended animation, allowing his body to withstand the harsh conditions, the report said.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SURVIVOR?

Pradeep told The Mirror in 1997 that they paid 150 pounds to an agent in Delhi, who came up with this plan that they could get into the luggage compartment of a London-bound flight and travel to their destination as stowaways.

“We headed for the first plane we could see,” he was quoted. “Once inside the undercarriage, Vijay began looking for the door into the baggage hold, but before we knew it, the plane started to move.”

The plane was a Boeing 747 jumbo jet with more than 300 people onboard but no one knew what was going on inside the wheel well.

“The noise was terrible,” Pardeep was quoted as telling British media at the time. “As the wheels came up they were glowing hot. They were burning us.”

“Some people say he is the luckiest man alive… Some days he feels lucky, but then he realises the agony that luck has brought. Then he feels he might as well have died too,” his uncle Tarsem Singh Bola was quoted as saying back when the incident happened.

Reports say Pradeep went on to get residential status, worked at the Heathrow airport, and now lives in London. A family background check from 1996 shows that the Saini brothers had relatives in London’s Southall.

Pradeep feared that they would be accused of having pro-Khalistan links as it was a time of militancy in Punjab. While his initial plea for asylum was rejected, he later settled in the UK after a prolonged legal battle. His current whereabouts, however, are not known.