A man is dead and another was found injured in England in an apparent airline stowaway accident, the BBC reported Friday. One man was found dead on a rooftop, while the other is in critical condition at a hospital after he was found in the undercarriage of a British Airways jet that flew from Johannesburg to London’s Heathrow Airport, the BBC reported. The Met Police force is still investigating, stating “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; however this is one line of enquiry into identifying the deceased and the circumstances of his death.”
In a statement, British Airways said in the BBC report: “We are working with the Metropolitan Police and the authorities in Johannesburg to establish the facts surrounding this very rare case.” Incidents of stowaways in the wheel wells of airliners have cropped up around the world on occasion, some resulting in deaths. A 26-year-old man died when he fell from an airliner inbound to London in 2012. Investigators believe he might have already been dead or incapacitated from the freezing temperatures during the flight. A teenage boy survived a flight from California to Hawaii in the wheel well of a 767 in 2014.
