A stowaway was found dead in the landing gear compartment of an American Airlines plane at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in North Carolina on Sunday, after a flight arrived from Europe. This was reported by The New York Times, writes UNN.
Details
According to Charlotte-Mecklenburg police, the body was discovered around 9 a.m. during aircraft maintenance. Law enforcement did not disclose the European city from which the flight arrived, nor did they reveal the identity of the deceased.
As noted, the case is being investigated by the police homicide unit.
While stowaway incidents are rare, those who attempt them typically hide in the landing gear compartment — a niche under the plane where the retracted wheels are stored during flight. Such attempts often end in death, according to the Flight Safety Foundation.
Earlier this year, the bodies of two people were found in the landing gear compartment of a JetBlue plane that flew from New York to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Last December, a body was discovered in the landing gear of a United Airlines plane that flew to Hawaii from Chicago.
Those who manage to survive usually do so due to a rare combination of circumstances: a combination of heat generated in the compartment, loss of consciousness, and hypothermia, which can temporarily preserve the nervous system
In 2022, a Kenyan man survived a flight from Johannesburg to Amsterdam by hiding in the front landing gear compartment of a cargo plane. In 2021, a man who hid in the landing gear of a plane survived a flight from Guatemala to Miami. And in 2014, a California teenager survived a five-and-a-half-hour flight in the landing gear compartment of a plane flying from San Jose, California, to Maui, Hawaii.
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