On Tuesday, a Kenya Airways plane headed for Kenya from South Africa was forced to turn back after a ‘stowaway’ was found.
According to Aviaton Herald, the Boeing 787-8 registration 5Y-KZC landed back in Johannesburg after a maintenance engineer was discovered in the plane.
The engineer was supposed to have been left at the Oliver Tambo Airport but somehow ended up on the plane, forcing the pilots to abort the flight and turn back after being notified by the flight crew.
READ ALSO: PHOTOS- Garden where Kenyan Airways plane stowaway fell 3,500ft
“(The plane) was climbing out of Johannesburg when the crew was informed a maintenance engineer should have been left in Johannesburg,” Aviaton Herald reported.
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The plane, which took off at 12:10 South African time landed back at the Oliver Tambo Airport 30 minutes later.
As the plane dropped off the engineer, the crew were quoted saying "He's here and conscious.”
Stowaway falls
This incident comes four months after a stowaway fell from a KQ plane as it made its final approach to Heathrow Airport.
The stowaway’s body fell from a landing gear compartment as the plane lowered its wheels.
The unidentified man whose mocked-up image was recently released by police crashed in a lawn in South London, narrowly missing a sunbather.
Stowaway’s death
Earlier on 11 February, the body of a stowaway was found in a KQ flight from Kinshasa. The flight had landed when the body was discovered in the landing gear.
“He seemed to have frozen there and died. The body was discovered after the plane had landed,” said a witness at the airport told The Standard.