Two die in China plane fall

One body was found in a house, the other in a field

Two people died after falling from a passenger plane moments before it landed in the Chinese city of Shanghai, police and state media have reported.

The two, described as "foreigners", crawled from the luggage compartment and fell from the undercarriage of an Air France flight, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The police haven't made their final conclusions, they're still investigating

Air France spokesman

One fell on to a house and the other fell in a field on the outskirts of Shanghai.

A police investigation into the incident began shortly after the plane arrived, an hour later than scheduled, at Pudong International Airport at 1105 local time (0305 GMT).

Passengers are said to have disembarked safely, however the plane is being held at the airport while inquiries continue.

Air France's Shanghai spokeswoman, Zhuang Ying, confirmed that two people had fallen from a plane and said police believed they came from the airline's flight AF112 from Paris.

But she added: "The police haven't made their final conclusions. They're still investigating.

"There were several planes in the sky at that moment."

Possible stowaways

The nationality of the dead was not immediately clear, although a source close to the investigation told the French AFP news agency that they were Europeans.

The pair fell into the Laoxiang neighbourhood of Shanghai's Nanhui district. It is unclear if anyone on the ground was injured.

A spokesman for the airport's police command centre said that there was no suspicion that the pair had been engaged in any "terrorist" activity.

The Eastern Net website quoted an airport official as saying the two were probably illegal immigrants.

The official said that stowaways had been found inside the undercarriage of planes before.