The South African stowaway found dead aboard a British Airways plane was on Friday identified in a Daily Telegraph report.
It is believed that seventeen-year-old Samuel Peter Benjamin crept aboard the aircraft in Cape Town, his home town, before it left on January 22.
Tshepo Mazibuko, from the South African embassy in Washington, told the paper it was not yet known why Benjamin had attempted to stow away on the aircraft.
”His mother said he left home without saying where he was going,” said Mazibuko.
”They [his parents] are in shock, like everybody, and are now looking at ways to get his body home. It is a very sad story.”
The report said Benjamin’s body could have been in the wheel well of the plane for more than a week, but authorities were investigating exactly when he had climbed into the compartment and what his motive had been for doing so.
The teenager was found in possession of South African documentation.
The Associated Press reported that the pilot of a British Airways flight found the body in the front right wheel well of the 747-400 during a routine inspection at Los Angeles Airport on Sunday afternoon.
The plane had arrived from London Heathrow Airport on Sunday. Before that, it had made trips to Hong Kong, Singapore, Cape Town, and Vancouver, the report said. — Sapa