Body Fell From Plane ( OOOOPS!)

BOSTON — A North Carolina teenager whose body was found in a Boston suburb last month had most likely stowed away inside a plane’s wheel well and fallen as it lowered its landing gear, the authorities said Friday.

The remains of the youth, Delvonte Tisdale, 16, were found in a quiet neighborhood in Milton, Mass., on Nov. 15, below a flight path to Logan Airport.

“It appears more likely than not that Mr. Tisdale was able to breach airport security and hide in the wheel well of a commercial jet airliner without being detected by airport security,” William R. Keating, Norfolk County district attorney, said at a news conference on Friday afternoon.

Mr. Keating said he had alerted federal authorities and the airport in Charlotte, N.C., where the teenager is believed to have gotten on the flight, about the events. While the case is a sad one, Mr. Keating said, it also underscores fears that someone with malicious intent could do the same thing.

“It’s a terrible tragedy what happened to this young man, but if that was someone with a different motive,” he said, “if that was a terrorist that could have been a bomb that was planted, undetected. This is very serious.”

Mr. Keating said the authorities had searched two airplanes that left Charlotte for Boston on Nov. 15, and found handprints in the left wheel well of a Boeing 737 that was scheduled to leave Charlotte Douglas International Airport at 7 p.m. that day.

“As they looked at the grease, they saw what I describe as lateral impressions that showed there was someone in there. There was a handprint in an area where it ordinarily wouldn’t be,” Mr. Keating said.

“I don’t pretend to tell you how he did it,” Mr. Keating said, noting that Delvonte was an Air Force R.O.T.C. student.

Clothing that matched a description that Delvonte’s family had given the authorities was found in Milton along the flight path, Mr. Keating said, and a plastic card — the type one uses to get into a hotel room — was found shattered.

“The altitudes were very high, and it gets very cold,” Mr. Keating said. “That card was shattered into such tiny pieces that it was consistent with something that had been frozen and shattered.”

The authorities initially believed that Delvonte had been murdered, and impounded two cars they thought to be suspicious. But in recent weeks, officials began investigating the possibility that the teenager had stowed away on an airplane.

“This was something that sounded quite remote, that someone could breach security aboard a commercial jet,” Mr. Keating said. “Again we look at every possibility.”

The authorities were at first flummoxed as to how the teenager had made it from North Carolina to Massachusetts so quickly. Delvonte was last seen around 1 a.m. Nov. 15 in Charlotte, and his body was found less than 24 hours later in Milton. A neighbor in the Milton neighborhood reported hearing a loud thump outside around 9 p.m.; the authorities said the plane landed minutes later.

Federal and state authorities continue to investigate the case, Mr. Keating said.

“I suspect,” he said, “that there will be a lot of scrutiny into this.”