BRUSSELS, Belgium_The body of a young African man was discovered Monday in the wheel well of an aircraft flying from Gambia to Brussels, Belgian carrier SN Brussels Airlines said.
A maintenance worker discovered the body on Monday morning after the flight from Gambia via Dakar, Senegal, landed at Brussels airport, the company said in a statement.
Belgian authorities are investigating, the airline said.
"Unfortunately, similar incidents have happened in the aviation industry several times in the past, despite all efforts to prevent them," the airline said. It gave no other details.
In 1999 the bodies of two teenage boys from Guinea were found in the landing gear of a Belgian plane in Brussels. The two had written a farewell letter calling on European leaders to do more to help Africa so that would-be immigrants would not take dangerous risks to seek a new life in Europe.
