If you've seen 'Commando', then you know the fallacy: You jump onto the landing gear, wait for it to retract, then ride out the flight in relative comfort in the underbelly of the airplane. Except it could never work in a million years, and this week's news of a stowaway dying is just one more example. 

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Adonis G. B. was a Cuban looking to hightail it out of the regime and defect. Having to do so illegaly, being a stowaway aboard a plane is one of only a few options. However, it's far from the best one. He made it as far as the landing gear compartment, but once the landing gear raised, he was crushed. All in all, it may not have been the worst way he could have gone. Ole' Adonis made the mistake of stowing away on a flight bound for...Madrid. Nine hours away. If he hadn't been crushed, he would have spent nine hours (or less) freezing to death while suffocating. Good times. 

Airplane cabins are pressurized and insulated so the passengers don't, um, die. Travelling at 32,000 or whatever feet, the air is too cold and thin to support life for more than a matter of minutes, so the cabin is pressurized and warmed to mimic sea level. The landing gear compartment isn't. So this guy wouldn't have made it to Miami (which would have been a more practical desitnation) than across the Atlantic to Madrid. 

So if you're going to stowaway, please stick to turn-of-the-century oceanliners and boxcars. The hobos know what's up.