Body found on Saudi plane tyre

JEDDAH: Airport workers in Riyadh found a human body on the landing gear of a flight from Beirut early Saturday, after a man apparently tried to hide in the wheel bay of the Saudi-owned Nas Air jet, aviation authorities said.

The body was discovered when a maintenance worker went to inspect the right rear landing gear of the Airbus 320 after it landed at Riyadh’s King Khaled International Airport on the flight from Lebanon, the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation said in a statement.

The unidentified body was sent to forensic medical experts for further examination, they said. “A man who has not yet been identified somehow managed to grab hold of a [wheel] of the jet in Beirut without the control tower noticing before takeoff,” a Lebanon airport official told AFP.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said passengers on the plane reported seeing a man in a baseball cap with a backpack make a dash for the plane as it prepared to taxi. He stumbled once and then continued towards the plane.

“The passengers and flight attendants informed the pilot, but he did not take any action and continued takeoff without informing the Beirut control tower,” said the NNA.

In Riyadh, Nas Air declined to comment on the report.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 11th, 2010.