Maui police investigate body found in wheel well of United Airlines flight
Maui police are investigating after a body was found in a wheel well of a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Hawaii Tuesday afternoon.
The body was found in the well of one of the main landing gears after Flight 202 landed at Maui’s Kahului Airport on Christmas Eve, a spokesperson for United Airlines said.
“Upon arrival at Kahului Airport in Maui on Tuesday, a body was found in the wheel well of one of the main landing gears on a United aircraft. United is working with law enforcement authorities on the investigation,”a United Airlines spokesperson said today.
“The wheel well was only accessible from outside of the aircraft. At this time, it is not clear how or when the person accessed the wheel well,” the statement said today.
The plane, a Boeing 787-10, left Chicago around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday for the more than eight-hour flight to Hawaii, landing shortly before 2:15 p.m., according to flight tracking website FlightAware
The Maui Police Department said it is investigating a dead person discovered on an incoming flight from the mainland, but provided no further details.
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Representatives of MPD, United and the state Department of Transportation said they had no further information to release on the death, and did not disclose the gender of the person.
Low oxygen levels in wheel storage compartments and extreme temperatures as flights climb to cruising altitudes make surviving in the wheel wells or other areas of commercial aircrafts rare, the Federal Aviation Administration has previously said. The agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The police did not say that the person who was found dead on Maui was a stowaway.
Others have died over the years after being in the landing gear compartment.
In 2021, a 26-year-old man survived a flight from Guatemala to Miami after hiding in the airplane’s landing gear compartment, officials said.
In 2019, the body of a man believed to have fallen from the landing gear compartment of a flight to Heathrow Airport from Nairobi, Kenya, landed in the backyard of a house in southwest London.
Star-Advertiser staff, the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune contributed to this report.
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