Body Found in Wheel Well of Jet at San Francisco

A body was found in the wheel well of a US Airways jet at San Francisco International Airport, but authorities were not immediately sure how the man died.

The body of the unidentified man was discovered after the plane landed late Monday. A mechanic found the body while checking a possible hydraulic leak on Flight 741, which originated at London’s Gatwick Airport and stopped in Pittsburgh before landing in San Francisco at 8:45 p.m.

London authorities suspect the victim might be the same man arrested at Gatwick on Sunday for breaching security regulations. A man, fitting the same description, had been caught attempting to gain access to a plane at Gatwick, police said.

The mechanic found the man in the 767-200’s center wheel well, which is about 15 feet wide and 20 feet long, airport duty manager Mike Towle said. “I’ve been here 30 years. There’s been stowaways, but not like this,” Towle said.

Stowing away in an airliner wheel well often is fatal. When the wheels retract, the area is enclosed, but it is not pressurized, so there is limited oxygen and it is extremely cold.

In August, a man survived a freezing flight across the Pacific in the wheel well of an Air France jet that landed at Los Angeles International Airport. The flight originated in Papeete, Tahiti.

The following month, the body of a Russian stowaway was discovered in the wheel well of a KLM jet arriving in Amsterdam from Moscow. The 21-year-old man had died from exposure.

And in November, a Romanian man was discovered unconscious and suffering from hypothermia in the undercarriage of a Berlin-bound passenger jet that was forced to return to Munich after the pilot couldn’t retract the landing gear.