A stowaway was found dead in the wheel well of an American Airlines flight that arrived at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina on Sunday.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said maintenance workers located the body in the Boeing 777-200’s landing gear shortly after 9 a.m. local time. The department confirmed the flight originated in Europe but did not say what country or city it took off from.
Data from Flightradar24 shows the aircraft arrived from Frankfurt on Friday. It previously flew to Madrid after spending a month at a maintenance facility in San Salvador, El Salvador.
The CMPD’s Homicide Unit is leading the investigation into the stowaway’s death.
No information about the individual, including their name or age, has been released to the public.
In a statement, American said it is working with law enforcement on the case.
“We are deeply saddened by this news and will support the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s investigation as needed,” airport officials told ABC News. “Airport operations continue as normal.”
Stowaways on commercial airline flights are rare, but the wheel well is a common hiding spot for many, according to data collected by the Flight Safety Foundation. Hiding in an aircraft’s wheel well is extremely dangerous, as stowaways face the risk of hypoxia and hypothermia at high altitudes. The FAA suggests many stowaways are never noticed because they fall from aircraft over oceans or remote areas over land.
In January, two bodies were recovered from the landing gear of a JetBlue flight from New York to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Investigators later determined that the stowaways were teenagers from the Dominican Republic.
