On Monday, three objects tumbled from a plane leaving Ecuador for New York, falling nearly 1,000 feet shortly after takeoff and landing with a thud on the runway.
Airport personnel rushed to the site, fearing LATAM Airlines flight XL1438 lost vital parts before leaving the port city of Guayaquil.
They arrived to find one person dead from the fall and another badly injured but alive. He would die minutes later, local media outlets reported. A suitcase with clothes and about $20 also was found.
The two men appear to have crawled into the landing gear section of the plane, said Gen. Marcelo Tobar, Guayaquil’s police chief. He speculated they were either forced out by the mechanics of the gears or they had second thoughts and jumped in the hope they would survive, according to Ecuador-based El Comercio. The men, between the ages of 25 and 30, did not have identification.
Officials suggested the men were Peruvian because the flight originated in Lima with a stop in Guayaquil, but they later determined the stowaways likely climbed aboard in Ecuador, El Comercio reported.