A South African airline has described as tragic an abandoned foetus found on board in a FlySafair flight which was scheduled to take off from Durban at 6:15am on Friday.

 “Flight FA 411 was scheduled to depart Durban for Johannesburg at 06:15 am. Upon final preparations of the waste management system for the departure of flight, our technical crew discovered what appeared to be an abandoned foetus within the system.

“Immediately the teams alerted the relevant authorities to initiate investigations.

“Unfortunately, this has resulted in delay to flight FA411 as passengers were asked to disembark the aircraft while FlySafair initiated procedures to recover their onward journey."

“We will be doing everything within our power to aid authorities in the necessary investigations and thank our loyal customers for their patience with the resultant delay” says Kirby Gordon, Head of Sales and Distribution at FlySafair.

They added beyond this we are unable to comment on any specifics relating to the finding which is now a police matter. The South African Police Service would be better poised to provide any further information.