Flying in cargo compartments, a look back

MUMBAI: The IndiGo loader who flew inside an aircraft cargo compartment from Mumbai to Abu Dhabi on Sunday wasn’t the first passenger to fly among bags and containers. Six years ago, a similar incident had occurred in the US, when a ramp worker involuntarily ended up flying from Seattle to Los Angeles in the cargo compartment of an Alaska Airlines aircraft.
For the Mumbai airport too, a human travelling in a cargo compartment wasn’t a first. In mid-1960s, Australian former athlete Reg Spiers “posted” himself and flew in a cargo box from England to Australia inside an Air India aircraft as he didn’t have money to buy to an air ticket. The airline, unaware of the human inside the box, put it in the cargo compartment for a three day long flight from London with transit halts in Paris and Mumbai on its way to Perth.