Bodies of child stowaways found in plane from Ghana

The bodies of two boys were found in the undercarriage of a flight from Ghana after it landed at Heathrow, police said yesterday.

The bodies of two boys were found in the undercarriage of a flight from Ghana after it landed at Heathrow, police said yesterday.

The youngsters, who looked as young as 12, were wearing only light clothing against the bitter cold of the six-hour flight and carrying just an empty wallet, an old padlock and two greetings cards.

They were found by a ground engineer in a wheel compartment of the Ghana Airways DC-10 on Saturday. "They must have been absolutely desperate. They were very young and they mustn't have realised how cold it would get," a police spokesman said.

Yesterday, officers, who believe the pair were most probably related, were trying to trace their families back in Ghana. A post-mortem examination failed to establish a conclusive cause of death.