Quote:
LOS ANGELES, January 29, 2007 - An investigation is under way Monday on an apparent stowaway whose body was found in the wheel well of a British Airways airliner that landed at Los Angeles International Airport, according to airport police.
A pilot discovered the body of the young man in the front right wheel well of the 747-400 during a routine inspection shortly before it was to return to London, airport spokeswoman Nancy Castles said.
The FBI determined the stowaway likely died in the wheel well, Castles said. Autopsy results won't be available until later this week. Authorities had not identified the victim late Sunday.
The aircraft, British Airways Flight 283, had arrived from London Heathrow Airport at 3:15 p.m. and was scheduled to depart at 5:20 p.m. The airline notified officials of the discovery just before 4:30 p.m., Castles said.
The 294 passengers booked on the flight back to London were delayed while the body was investigated, Proud said.
A source familiar with the investigation told the Los Angeles Times that documents were found on the body indicating he was a black South African national born in 1989.
It was unknown how the man managed to avoid security measures to stow away on the plane and it was unclear if he got on in London or at its previous departure point in Hong Kong.
"These aircraft don't go on a fixed route," said Alan Proud, a spokesman for British Airways. "It would have been somewhere else in world before that. That's part of the investigation, to look at where the aircraft had been before."
Temperatures in the wheel well during the 10-hour flight could have dropped to minus 50 degrees, authorities said.
Airport police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI are all Investigating.
There have been several incidents in recent years of people climbing into the airplane wheel wells, usually ending in death -- extreme cold and lack of oxygen in the wheel wells make the odds of survival slim. Stowaways have also fallen from the wheel wells or been crushed by the landing gear. Only a few stowaways survived such trips.
On Jan. 12, the body of a young African man was discovered in the wheel well of a Delta plane that landed in Atlanta from Dakar, Senegal.
Authorities determined that the man hid in the plane in Senegal and was suffocated to death by the landing gear.
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It's amazing what some people do in order to gain freedom. Most of them don't think of the consequences.
01-29-07, 03:43 PM
Re: Body Found in Airplane Wheel Well at LAX 
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