Stock picture: The body parts fell on the city of Jeddah (Picture: PA)

Human body parts which fell from the sky in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah may have been the remains of someone trapped in a plane’s landing gear, police have said.

Shocked residents called officers after human remains landed in the road in the Mushrefa neighbourhood of the city at 2.30am on Sunday.

Early indications suggest the body parts belong to a man stowed away in a passenger jet’s wheel bay, police spokesman Nawaf bin Naser al-Bouq said.

The incident comes after a Saudi plane was forced to make an emergency landing in the city of Medina, injuring 29 people.




However, a spokesman for the General Authority of Civil Aviation said there was no connection between the emergency grounding and the Jeddah incident.

The Saudi Arabian Airlines aircraft had been travelling to Iran’s second city of Mashhad and had 315 people on board when it was forced to land suddenly.

Meanwhile, a picture of the unfortunate stowaway’s body lying in the road appeared in Arabian media and on social media websites.

It is not uncommon for people at poorly guarded airports in the region to climb inside aircraft through their landing gear.

Most freeze to death once the planes reach cruising altitude, but some survive.

In 2010, the head of Beirut’s airport security resigned after the death of a man who managed to hide in the undercarriage of a jet. His body was discovered after the plane landed in Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia.

In April last year Jose Matada fell out of a British Airways flight from Angola as it made its way into Heathrow Airport after stowing away in the plane’s landing gear.