Students stow away on flight from Medan

Students stow away on flight from Medan

JAKARTA (JP): Two high school students were found unconscious
at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport yesterday after stowing
away aboard a Garuda Indonesia aircraft from Medan, North
Sumatra, police said.

The two, identified as Iswadi Simatupang, 17, and Manto
Manurung, 16, were found unconscious in the front wheel cavity of
the A-300-B4 aircraft of flight GA 151.

Iswadi also suffered fractured bones in his right hand and
Manto burned one of his legs. Both were sent to the airport
clinic for medical treatment.

An airport official, who asked not to be named, denied the
police's statement, saying that the two students were in good
condition.

He said a medical examination showed that neither of them had
suffered severe injuries.

"The two, who were classmates at a state-run senior high
school in Deli Serdang, confessed that they only wanted to know
what it was like to fly by airplane," a police officer said.

The airport official, however, said that the two students
stowed away because they wanted to run away to Jakarta.

"They are just naughty boys who wanted to run away from home.
They also claimed that they planned it with two other friends,"
he said.

Police said the two teenagers sneaked into Polonia Airport in
Medan late Monday and avoided security patrols by hiding in the
dry water-channel.

A source at the airport said the teenagers were thought to
have climbed into the aircraft from the wheel cavity at around 3
a.m. yesterday.

The aircraft took off from Polonia airport at around 7 a.m.
carrying nearly 150 passengers, apart the two boys, and landed at
Soekarno Hatta at 10:30 a.m.

The ground mechanics found the boys by spotting the two
students' legs in the cavity and helped them out of it.

Police said it took 15 minutes to extricate one of the two
adventurers from the cavity, while rescuing the other one took an
hour. Police refused to give details of the rescue.

The airport official said the two had suffered from
suffocation, especially when the aircraft was at 29,000 feet.

The authorities are still investigating whether any other
students stowed away aboard other planes. (41/cst)