A stowaway was found alive but in critical condition in the undercarriage bay of an Air Algeria airplane at Paris Orly airport on Thursday morning, a security source briefed on the matter told Reuters.

The person was in a life-threatening condition and was being treated at a nearby hospital, the source said.

The plane was coming from the Western Algerian town of Oran, a two-and-a-half hour flight from Paris.

Stowaways in the unpressurised wheel-houses and cargo holds of planes can face temperatures of between minus 50 Celsius and minus 60 Celsius as well as a lack of oxygen.

In 2019, the body of a suspected stowaway fell hundreds of meters from a plane flying over southwest London, landing in the garden of a man’s home, just missing him as he sunbathed.

In 2015, the body of a stowaway on a British Airways flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow landed on a shop in Richmond, southwest London. A second stowaway survived the 10-hour flight and was found in the undercarriage of the plane.