Nigerian stowaway dies under South African Airways plane at U.S .airport

A suspected stowaway was found frozen to death in the undercarriage of a South African Airline passenger jet at Dulles Airport in Washington, after the plane landed from Senegal.

The man, identified only as Chris Dikeh, with a Nigerian Passport and in his mid-30s, is believed to have frozen in temperatures around -60°C.

The deceased boarded the aircraft from Dakar, Senegal, his body was discovered Saturday in the wheel well of the plane parked at Dulles International Airport in Washington.

Per Second News gathered from the Police that it was a South African Airways jet that was parked now in a remote part of the airport. Grounds crews found the body on Saturday afternoon.”

Airport authorities say the male body was recovered from the landing gear of the Airbus A340 belonging to South African Airways. The flight arrived in Dulles on Wednesday last week.

In a release sent to Per Second News by officials of the South African Airways and signed by SAA spokesperson Mr Tlali Tlali,” (SAA) has initiated an internal investigation into the discovery of a human body on its aircraft in Washington DC, in the United States of America”.

“Once at the Dulles International Airport in Washington DC, it was discovered that there was a fault with the landing gear of the aircraft A340-300 and the aircraft had to receive attention. It led to SAA dispatching its engineers and technicians to the US to identify the cause and to fix the fault on the aircraft”.

“During the process of conducting tests on the aircraft, SAA engineers discovered a human body in the centre wheel well”.

“SAA will offer its full cooperation to the US authorities and/or law enforcement agencies in an effort to ensure that a thorough investigation into this incident is carried out as expeditiously as possible”.

“We regret any loss of human life and are deeply concerned about the suspicious circumstances surrounding this incident and for that reason we have initiated an SAA internal investigation into the whole matter”, Tlali concluded..

According to South African Airways, the plane initially departed from Johannesburg and made one stop in Dakar, Senegal before arriving in the U.S. It’s still unclear when the body got into the wheel well of the plane.

Meanwhile, Per Second news gathered that a Pathologist, who carried out a post-mortem examination on Dikeh, said he might have died hours after take-off as oxygen levels plummeted.

Officials of the Department of Homeland Security have contacted the Embassy of Nigeria to confirm his citizenship status.

SOURCE: www.thenationonlineng.net