Body of British Airways stowaway found on London rooftop

LONDON - A suspected stowaway has been found dead on a rooftop in outer London after he allegedly fell to his death from the undercarriage of a British Airways plane flying from Johannesburg, officials said Friday.

A second man who was also hiding in the undercarriage of the plane was hospitalized with injuries, according to British Airways.

Police are however still treating the death as "unexplained", according to a statement from the Metropolitan Police.

However, "one of the lines of inquiry", according to Michelle Elkins, a press officer for the police, was that the two men had stowed away on the same plane.

The BBC reported that the victim was found on the roof of notonthehighstreet.com's headquarters on Kew Road, Richmond, Thursday. The police could not confirm if the two cases were linked.

"At this time there is no evidence to link the death to the discovery of a stowaway in the undercarriage of a plane at Heathrow Airport. However this is one line of enquiry into identifying the deceased and the circumstances of his death," the police said in a statement.

The plane was flying from Johannesburg to London, a distance of about 12,875 kilometers. The British Airways takes nearly 12 hours to cover the distance.

The survivor, who is believed to be a 24-year-old man, is now in critical condition in hospital. He was discovered in the undercarriage of the flight, after enduring the long journey amid freezing temperatures.

"We are working with the Metropolitan Police and the authorities in Johannesburg to establish the facts surrounding this very rare case" said British Airways in a statement.

This is not the first case of its kind. There have been other similar incidents where stowaways have fallen to their deaths in London after smuggling themselves onto planes and hiding in landing gear.

Many people in the past have hitched a ride on a plane by holing up in a wheel well. Most don't survive.

In April last year, a 15-year-old boy sneaked into the wheel well of a Boeing 767 and flew from San Jose, California, to Maui, Hawaii. He survived.

The Guardian reported that the United Kingdom has seen several similar incidents before. Most of the victims were reported to be undocumented immigrants seeking a way into the country.

In 2013, the body of a young man named Jose Matada was found on the pavement in West London after falling from a plane that had flown there from Angola. A cellphone SIM card found in his pocket revealed text messages he'd sent to a former employer living in Switzerland.

He told her that he was "traveling to Europe for a better life," the Guardian reported.