At a time when Lebanese security authorities in Beirut have started investigating workers who serviced a Nas Air plane that carried a stowaway whose body was found in Riydah Saturday, medical authorities in Riyadh are waiting for directives to form committees to examine the body and conduct an autopsy. The body was discovered when a maintenance worker inspected the Airbus 320's landing gear after it landed at Riyadh's King Khaled International Airport on the flight from Lebanon, the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation said Saturday in a statement. Lebanese Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud said it is not known that a security breach at Rafiq Al-Hariri International Airport allowed the unidentified man to sneak into the Saudi plane's wheel bay before it left Beirut. He said the determination cannot be made before an investigation “because the subject might much smaller than a security breach, especially since the runway usually has workers on the ground.” Nas Air Corporate Communication Manager in Riyadh Ahmed Saleem told Saudi Gazette Saturday that the stowaway was a Lebanese national. Baroud pointed out that “the investigation is not only administrative, but the judiciary is involved as well and there are guarantees it will be completed.” He said, “All those concerned, from the airport presidency to airport security and the Directorate General for Civil Aviation are participating in the investigation. There are answers that must be given to the people about what has happened. At this point, I have no definite answer on which I can make assurances. I call upon all to wait until completion of the investigation.” Preliminary investigations indicate that some passengers on the plane saw a person running toward the jet. The man, who was wearing a cap and a backpack, fell on the ground, got up and rushed toward the plane when it was beginning to take off. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency has said passengers and flight attendants informed the pilot who continued takeoff without informing the Beirut control tower about the incident. In line with directives of Lebanese Transportation Minister Ghazi Al-Aridi, Lebanese civil aviation authorities asked their Saudi counterparts and Nas Air to assist the investigation and identification of the stowaway by providing official reports, especially any information regarding the dead man's previous criminal activities, investigations of Nas Air's employees and testimony of the plane's passengers. Authorities at King Khaled International Airport have also started an investigation into the case. Nas Air, a subsidiary of the Riyadh-based Saudi National Air Services, is the first low-cost carrier to fly in Saudi Arabia and started its domestic flights on February 25, 2007. Medical sources in Riyadh said the unidentified body is still in the morgue in the forensic medicine department, and that they await directives from the investigation committees to start an autopsy. The sources said there are several probabilities for death; the man could have died of extremely cold temperatures reaching –50 Centigrade, impact with the plane's wheels when the landing gear was raised and other possibilities that will be addressed by the autopsy and DNA tests.
