A youth carrying South African documents has been found dead in the wheel well of a British Airways jet at Los Angeles International Airport, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday.
Authorities are investigating whether the dead stowaway, described as a young black male, got into the plane at its previous stop in London or at an earlier stop in Hong Kong.
The body was discovered by the plane’s pilot during a routine pre-flight check Sunday afternoon. It was one of several incidents in recent years of people climbing into aircraft wheel wells.
The cases usually end in death because of extreme cold and lack of oxygen. Even if stowaways do survive the cold, they usually fall out of the wheel wells when the landing gear’s doors open, plunging hundreds of metres to their death. — Sapa