At 19:56 on Friday, January 6, Avianca flight AV116, which had departed from Santiago de Chile at 16:26, landed at Bogota’s El Dorado International Airport, operated by Airbus A320neo, registration number N765AV.
According to official information provided by the Colombian Civil Aeronautics, during the subsequent maintenance inspection, two people were found dead in the landing gear. The airline explained that «the safety protocol was immediately activated» and the authorities in both Colombia and Chile were notified so that they could start the investigation of the case, whose technical procedures were in charge of the Attorney General’s Office, collecting the bodies and transferring them to the morgue.
Avianca also added that «within its security processes before the start of each flight it inspects the aircraft and its perimeter», but that «airport security, control of restricted areas and perimeter control is the responsibility of the airport authorities and administrators».
«The airline is attentive to collaborate with the airport and local authorities for the clarification of the case and that the necessary measures are taken so that events like these do not happen again,» they concluded.
It is quite common (although more so in other regions than in Latin America) that illegal immigrants resort to hiding in the holds or in the landing gear compartments of aircrafts, a fact that often leads to tragedies such as that of Avianca flight AV116.
