Airline loses paralympian's leg

Paralympic athlete Kate Horan's plans to run in the IPC World Championships 100m race next week have been severely disrupted after British Airways lost her leg.

The Wellington athlete's $10,000 running leg has been sitting in a London warehouse with 20,000 other pieces of lost luggage for more than a week, the Dominion Post reported today.

Since British authorities foiled a terrorist plot to attack flights out of Heathrow Airport, increased security forced travellers to limit their carry-on luggage.

For Horan that meant she had to check in her running leg for the short flight from London to Amsterdam.

"They said there's 20,000 bags sitting in Heathrow and mine is just one of them. I was told they don't know where it is," she said.

Horan is now in a race against time with manufacturer Otto Bock and Ossur, which will attempt to build her another leg in time for the world championships.

"All the time that I should be training and getting myself ready, I'm going to be spending trialling this leg and trying to get a leg that fits."

- NZPA