Unidentified body found in wheel well of flight from Japan
Preliminary investigation indicated person died more than 72 hours before body was found
Kass
An unidentified body clad in jeans and a white shirt was discovered inside the wheel well of an aircraft at the Kuala Lumpur airport after it landed from Japan on Thursday.
The body, whose gender was yet to be revealed, was found in the wheel well by engineering personnel shortly after the flight from Tokyo landed at about 6.30am.
The wheel well is the underside compartment which houses the landing gear – wheels and supporting machinery – while the aircraft is flying.
Airport workers detected a suspicious foul smell coming from the wheel well and opened the compartment to find the body.
They reported the matter to the airport police station, which called the forensics unit of the Royal Malaysia Police to the scene.
The body is believed to belong to a person in their 20s.
According to a preliminary investigation, the person likely died more than 72 hours before the body was found.
No identification documents were found on the body.
In the wake of the discovery, authorities said, an investigation was launched to identify the body and determine the cause of death.
The Independent contacted the Kuala Lumpur airport for comment, but didn’t receive an immediate response.
Similar incidents have been reported before. In June 2026 an unidentified body of a man was found in the wheel well of an Air Arabia flight from Morocco. An inquest later heard that he had died of cardiac arrest, followed by hypoxia and hypothermia.
In another such incident in December 2024, a dead man was discovered in the landing gear of a United Airlines flight after it arrived from Chicago.
