Aircraft stowaways who survived against the odds

If a man who survived an 11-hour flight from Johannesburg to London lives, he will have completed the longest ever stowaway flight to the UK.

He is now in a serious condition in hospital after being found unconscious at Heathrow Airport.

But before him, the last time a migrant completed anywhere near such a journey was in 1996.

Pardeep Saini miraculously survived a 10-hour flight from New Delhi to Heathrow.

Braving temperatures of minus 60C, he and his brother Vijay hid in the plane's wheel bay.

When the plane landed, Pardeep, then 22, was found staggering across the tarmac.

His 19-year-old brother was not so lucky, having perished from the cold and falling 2,000ft to the ground.

Speaking to the Mirror at the time, Pardeep said: "Minutes after take-off I passed out.

"My next memory is of being in a detention centre in Britain, where I was told my brother was dead."

Pardeep said he believed his brother died quickly "probably before the first drinks were served" to passengers a few feet above them.

As the brothers were wedged into opposite corners of the plane's wheel house, there was no chance to say goodbye.

Nobody had ever survived stowing away for so long on a jet cruising 10,000ft higher than Everest.

There would have been virtually no oxygen which should have led to brain damage, and it is so cold exposed flesh should freeze.

Miraculously Pardeep survived even when his breathing and heart rate slowed to such a rate other men would have died.

But it was not a happy ending for Pardeep as he was later refused asylum in the UK.

Here are five other stowaways who survived against the odds:

• 1. Bae Wie was one of the first plane stowaways. The 12-year-old Indonesian boy survived a 3 hour journey from Kupang to Darwin in 1946. At the time Australia were expelling Indonesians who sought refuge there in the war but Bae's case became a national cause and he was granted citizenship.

• 2. Roberto Viza Egües survived a 14-hour flight from Havana to Paris in a cargo container in 2000. But his request for asylum was denied the same year and he was returned to Cuba.

• 3. Fidel Maruhi, from Tahiti, survived a 4,000 mile journey from Papeete to LA, also in 2000. He was discovered as the Air France plane refuelled but he later said he took the trip to meet his favourite footballer Zinedine Zidane.

• 4. Romanian national, who has never been identified, survived an 800-mile trip from Vienna to London in 2010. Normally the plane would have flown at a higher altitude but experts believe he survived as it flew lower due to thunderstorms. He said he came to Britain to find work but as he was an EU national he was allowed to stay.

• 5. Yahya Abdi, 15, miraculously survived a five-hour flight from California to Hawaii in a freezing wheel well in 2014. He said he made the trip to try and reunite with his mother, who his father had falsely claimed was dead.