A stowaway was found dead in the wheel well of an American Airlines plane at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina on Sunday after it arrived from Europe, police said.

The body was found just after 9 a.m. while maintenance work was being done on the plane, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said in a statement. Police did not say where in Europe the flight had originated, and neither did they offer details about the identity of the stowaway.

Detectives with the department’s homicide unit are investigating the death, police said.

It is rare for stowaways to sneak onto planes, but those who do often hide in the wheel well, a compartment underneath the plane where the retractable landing gear is stored during flight. The results are often fatal, according to da

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