He also said that the prime minister's office had paid for the lodging of the plane's crew and the security detail, again standard practice.
However the stairway survived, it made all the difference to Stanley Praimnath, who, huddled under his desk, could see a shiny aluminum piece of the plane, lodged in the remains of his door.
Plastered onto the shrapnel shard, investigators said, were microscopic traces of glass of the type used by Boeing on its airliner cockpits, indicating clearly that it had passed through the plane's windshield before lodging in the pilot's body.
The plane and the lodge are owned by an Alaskan telecommunications firm, GCI.
A total of 44 passengers and 33 of their dependants who were aboard the plane when it landed at Stansted, Essex, lodged claims for asylum.
Reports have put the plane's departure from a hunting lodge anywhere from 2 p.m. to 3 15 p.m., and discovery of the plane between 6 30 p.m. and 8 p.m.
The wheels were lodged so deep, in fact, that the truck that came to tow the plane away couldn't pry it loose.
By not holding the plane, the airline would now have to provide lodging and at least a meal for these passengers, plus get them seated on flights out the next day.
The plan was for the group to fly from a hunting lodge to a fishing camp, both owned by the Alaskan telecommunications company GCI, and then back later in the day, she said; at some point, staff at the hunting lodge called the camp to ask whether the group would be returning to the lodge for dinner, and the staff at the camp said the plane had never arrived.
As he exited the plane, Tay Za invited us to his lavish tourist lodge the following day.
