Iran airport denies Lufthansa's claim about dead body

Head of Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA) has denied claims that a dead body found in the undercarriage of a Lufthansa plane in Frankfurt airport earlier this week was related to a flight that arrived from IKA.

According to Press TV, Saeid Chalandari said on Saturday that authorities had checked CCTV cameras installed at IKA for any potential clue on the dead body that the German flag carrier claimed was found in the landing gear of its Airbus jet after it arrived from Tehran on Thursday morning.

“We have checked all cameras in the airport and there was no problem at all,” Chalandari was quoted as saying by Fars news agency.

He expressed doubts about the authenticity of claims by Lufthansa as he insisted that pilots normally carry out checks on landing gear bays of airplanes before flights.

The official also rejected media reports about the alleged incident and said that such cases are normally communicated to the airports via a written correspondence by the airline company involved.

He said that Lufthansa had only reported the incident to IKA via a phone call some 14 hours after the body was discovered without providing any evidence to corroborate the claims.

Lufthansa cancelled two flights from Tehran to Frankfurt scheduled for Friday and Saturday after reports emerged of the discovery of the body. However, the company said services would resume on Sunday.

Chalandari described Lufthansa’s decision to cancel flights as “questionable”.

The decision came after Germany’s Foreign Ministry said it will impose entry restrictions on Iranian nationals over what it called the worsening of human rights situation in the country.

That comes as Iran’s Foreign Ministry has protested against Germany’s interference in the country’s domestic affairs.

ME