Stowaway found alive on Johannesburg-London flight

A suspected stowaway was found unconscious on a flight from Johannesburg after the plane landed in London and a second man may have died falling out of the same flight, British police said Friday. The man found alive on Thursday is believed to be 24 years old and police said that he had been hiding in the undercarriage of the British Airways plane at the end of a journey that usually lasts 11 hours. Police had found the body of the dead man on the roof of an office under the flight path to London Heathrow Airport and were trying to work out if he could have fallen out of the plane. A police spokesman told AFP that the possibility was “one of the lines of inquiry.”

His condition is now described as critical.

a police statement said

The police were called about the suspected stowaway on the 12,875-kilometre  flight from South Africa at 8:28 am and about the body at 9:35 am. The flight takes 11 hours and outside temperatures during the journey would fall as low as minus 60 degrees Celsius (minus 76 Fahrenheit). The body was found on the roof of the offices of notonthehighstreet.com, an online retailer, in Richmond, a wealthy part of southwest London.

We are working with the Metropolitan Police and the authorities in Johannesburg to establish the facts surrounding this very rare case.

a British Airways spokeswoman

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