Dead Body Found On Hawaii Airport, Runway Closed Pending Investigation

A dead body was discovered by the Honolulu police on the runway of the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, Hawaii, on Saturday.

According to Hawaii Department of Transportation, the body was discovered at 12:15 p.m. local time (5:15 p.m. EST) near the reef runway, after the concerned authorities were alerted of an unknown object seen there.

“It was actually noticed by a plane. They spotted what could be objects on the runway, so our crews immediately went out and about 12:15 is when they made it to the scene, the reef runway, and made the discovery,” Tim Sakahara, public information officer for the Department of Transportation said, Hawaii news outlet Khon 2 reported.

The runway on which the body was discovered has been temporarily closed, pending investigation. There are three other runways on the airport, which will continue to be serviceable.

Homicide detectives, who were present on the scene, said that they were clueless about how the dead body ended up on the tarmac.

No flight delays or cancellations were reported as a result of the investigation.

Despite talks of air-tight security at airports, there have been cases of corpses being discovered inside the facilities, including flights. In early January, the cleaning crew discovered a body of a newborn baby stashed inside the bathroom of an Etihad Airways aircraft.

The baby was wrapped in plastic and dumped inside the bathroom after an Indonesian woman, Hani, gave birth on air. The unnamed woman was arrested after the discovery.

The flight had taken off from Abu Dhabi when Hani — believed to be a migrant worker — started to bleed. This forced the pilot to divert the plane to Jakarta International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand.

“The woman was in economy class but then laid on a business-class seat with an oxygen mask. The captain then announced we should divert to Bangkok,” a crew member of Etihad Airways, Francesco Calore, said.

The woman was not immediately interrogated about the incident as the police said that she “didn’t look healthy and won’t be questioned until she is fit.” Hani was admitted to the airport healthcare center.

According to the New York Times, Hani was a married woman with children. She confessed that the baby was hers and that she had dumped it inside the flight’s bathroom because it was the result of her extramarital affair with her boss in Abu Dhabi.

Hani did not elaborate on whether the baby was dead or alive when she had dumped it in the bathroom. The cause of death of the baby was still to be determined by the investigators.

Similarly, in September 2017, the body of a new-born baby was found in a waste bin in Bellville, Cape Town. After getting alerted of a suspicious bundle — wrapped in a black sweater — seen inside a waste bin, the South African city police discovered a dead body of a full-term baby boy in it.