Stowaway dies after falling from BA flight

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Body found in London street "fell from BA plane"

By Reuters


British Airways' new Airbus A380 arrives at a hanger after landing at Heathrow airport in London. © REUTERS/Paul Hackett

British police were investigating newspaper reports on Friday that a body found on the roof of a building in southwest London was that of a stowaway who had fallen from the undercarriage of a plane as it came in to land from South Africa.

The man's body was discovered on an office roof in Richmond on Thursday morning.

Shortly before, another man had been found unconscious in the undercarriage of a British Airways jet that had just arrived at nearby Heathrow airport from Johannesburg. He was taken to hospital in critical condition.

"At this time there is no evidence to link the death to the discovery of a stowaway in the undercarriage of a plane at Heathrow Airport," police said in a statement.

"However this is one line of enquiry into identifying the deceased and the circumstances of his death."

Police said the surviving man had been found about an hour earlier.

"At around 08:30hrs on 18 June police at Heathrow Airport were called to reports of a suspected stowaway on a flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow," they said.

"The man, believed aged 24, was found in the undercarriage of the plane and was taken to hospital. His condition is now described as critical."

British Airways said in a short statement that it was working with police and authorities in Johannesburg "to establish the facts surrounding this very rare situation."

Bodies have previously been found in the street in the Richmond and Kew areas of London which lie below the point at which many jets open their landing gear doors to put the wheels down on the Heathrow approach.

Experts say the chances of a stowaway managing to avoid either being crushed by the wheels as they retract after take-off or being frozen to death during the flight are very small.

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Authorities investigate 'very rare case'


Gregg Canes/CNN

A stowaway on a British Airways jet was found dead after falling on a roof as the plane approached London Heathrow Airport, authorities said Friday.

It's unclear whether the man had crouched in the wheel well, a common hiding place among stowaways.

A second man who was hiding in the undercarriage of the plane was hospitalized with injuries, the airline said.

The plane was flying from Johannesburg to London when the man fell Thursday and landed above a business in Richmond, southwest London. Johannesburg and London are about 6,000 miles apart, and the flight is nearly 12 hours long.

In a statement, Metropolitan Police said an investigation is underway, and British Airways said it's working with authorities in both nations to get more details.

Plenty of people have hitched a ride on a plane by holing up in a wheel well. Most don't survive.

In April last year, a 15 year old boy sneaked into the wheel well of a Boeing 767 and flew from San Jose, California, to Maui, Hawaii. He survived.

In February of the same year, crews at Dulles International Airport in suburban Washington found the body of a man inside the wheel well of an Airbus A340 operated by South African Airways.

It's not difficult to climb inside a wheel well, Jose Wolfman Guillen, a ground operations coordinator at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, said last year.

"You can grab onto the struts and landing gear assembly kind of like a ladder," he said. "And you just jump on the tire and climb into the wheel well."

But after takeoff, many scenarios could kill a stowaway hiding in the landing gear wheel well.

Inside, there's not much room - even less than in the trunk of a car, Guillen said.

A stowaway would need to guess where the tire is going to fold in when it closes after takeoff, he said. Otherwise, there's a high risk of getting crushed once the gear starts going in.

This issue of stowaways making it aboard flights has raised questions about airport security.

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