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Refused ticket, so man runs naked into moving jet's wheel well
He was refused a plane ticket to Australia on Monday as he didn't have a valid credit card. So, an angry Neil Melly, 31, stripped naked, sprinted across the tarmac and climbed into the wheel well of a moving jumbo jet yesterday at the Los Angeles Airport. Pilots of the Qantas Airways flight stopped the plane and the Canadian was coaxed out. He was arrested for trespassing, said airport spokesman, Ms Nancy Castles. She said: '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 320kmph, he might have fallen out and could have been sucked up by an engine. 'If he had survived that and was in the wheel well when the landing gear was retracted, he could have been crushed by the mechanism.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 9,150m while wearing no clothes.' | The lack of oxygen would have killed him first. |
Mr Melly had been reported missing to the Canadian police and is a nut was suffering from a manic-depressive illness, she said. | Maybe he was upset about Bush winning? |
It wasn't an easy run for Mr Melly. He had managed to climb over an airport fence, topped by three strands of barbed wire, without injury and was spotted by a worker 'running naked, full-speed' towards the plane. | Missed the Darwin Award by that much. |
Posted by: Steve 2004-11-04 |
