The body of a
suspected stowaway was yesterday found in the main wheel well (the under
carriage compartment) of Air Arik Airbus 330-200 aircraft at the Oliver Tambo
International Airport, Johannesburg, South Africa.
The aircraft
operated the scheduled Lagos-Johannesburg flight that departed the Murtala
Mohammed International Airport in Lagos at 3:55pm on Tuesday and arrived in
Johannesburg shortly before 11pm.
Engineers of South
African Airways Technical facility at the airport where the aircraft was
scheduled for a routine maintenance check, discovered the body during inspection.
“Investigations are
ongoing to determine how the stowaway found his way into the aircraft’s main
wheel well,” said Arik Air spokesman, Olabanji Ola. This was the third incident
in the airline’s history of an alleged stowaway found dead in Arik’s plane. The
last incident was reported in March, 2015 when a suspected Nigerian stowaway
was found dead on the Arik Air aircraft at the Lagos airport while engineers
were checking the plane’s preparation for a flight from Lagos to Johannesburg.
In October, 2012,
another body was found on an Arik’s
Lagos-New York flight.
In September 2013, a
14-year-old boy, Daniel Oikhena, stowed away in an Arik Air Benin City-Lagos
flight. The boy, who hid himself in the tyre compartment, however, miraculously
survived the flight.
According to him, he
thought the flight was America-bound from the Benin Airport, and had hoped to
achieve his life ambition of a trip to the United States.
Stowaway persons
usually have the backup of airline officials as they can’t successfully operate
in isolation.
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