UK UK - Body of man who fell from plane found in a London garden, 1 July 2019

[Mrs. Badcrumble]

"The body of a stowaway who fell into the garden of a suburban London house from a jet as it passed overhead, narrowly missed the homeowner.

Police and airline officials say the man fell from the landing gear of the plane as it approached London's Heathrow Airport after a nine-hour flight from Nairobi, Kenya.

The Metropolitan Police force confirmed the body of an unidentified man was found in a south London garden on Sunday, and it's believed he fell from a plane.

He has not yet been identified and his age is also not known as this stage, authorities said."

Body found in London garden fell from Heathrow-bound flight from Nairobi | Daily Mail Online

"One told MailOnline: 'I was pottering around in the kitchen yesterday afternoon when there was an almighty bang.

'At first I thought it was some scaffolding falling down and thought nothing more about it.

'My husband decided to see what was going on and went upstairs to take a look.

'He didn't tell me what had happened at first. He was obviously quite shocked and went out into the street where my neighbour was standing on the phone to the police.

'He was really shaken up. He'd been in the garden when it happened and the body must have landed so close to where he was.

'My husband came back in and I asked him what was going on and he said ''haven't you seen the man? - the man who fell from the sky?''

'I wondered what he was talking about and went up to see for myself and there in the middle of the lawn was a body of a man.' "

-----------------------------------

Oh, dear. How horrible!

 

[LadyL]

wow
I wonder if he died prior to falling and his body just happened to wedge loose

 

[dotr]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/heathrow-airport-london-stowaway-man-body-found-1.5196366

Kenya Airways planes are seen parked at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport near Nairobi, Kenya, on March 6. Police in London say they recovered the body of a man in a garden in London's south end on Sunday, and he's believed to have fallen from a plane. (Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)

The body of a man believed to have been a stowaway who fell from the undercarriage of a jet approaching London's Heathrow Airport has been found in a garden in the city's south end, police said Monday.

"The man fell from the landing gear of a Kenya Airways plane as it approached London after a nine-hour flight from Nairobi, according to police and airline officials.

Metropolitan police said the body of an unidentified man was found in a residential garden in the city's Clapham district on Sunday.

The man has not yet been identified. Police said a post-mortem would be held to determine the cause of death.

'Unfortunate' incident: Kenya Airways
Kenya Airways said police traced the body to its Nairobi-London flight. A bag, water and food were discovered in the plane's landing-gear compartment after the aircraft touched down."

 

[dotr]

Body found in London garden after man 'fell from Kenya Airways plane'
"At first I though it was a tramp asleep in the garden.

The flight path of a Kenya Airways flight, which is believed to have been carrying a suspected stowaway (FlightRadar/PA)

"He had all of his clothes on and everything. I had a closer look and saw there was blood all over the walls of the garden.

"His head was not in a good way. I realised immediately that he had fallen.
"So I went outside and it was just then the neighbour came out and he was very shaken."
"He had been sunbathing and he landed one metre away from him."

"The neighbour, who asked not to be named, said that a plane spotter who had been following the flight on an app from Clapham Common had seen the body fall.

The plane spotter had arrived almost at the same time as the police and told them it had been a Kenyan Airways flight.

He said the body was removed at about 8.30pm and that the clean-up team had returned on Monday morning to continue the job.

The man added: "I spoke to Heathrow Airport this morning to ask if they were aware of this. If it had been two seconds later, he would have landed on the common where there were hundreds of people - my kids were in the garden 15 minutes before he fell.

"I spoke to Heathrow. They said this happens once every five years."

 

[Elainera]

 

[Keine Engel]

"I spoke to Heathrow. They said this happens once every five years."

Just ... WOW!

 

[CoverMeCagney]

Oh my word. He basically burst. Thank god the resident wasn't still outside or he could have been killed too.

Did this man freeze or pass out up there and fail to hold on when the wheels dropped? I wonder what the "success rate" is for stowaways in the landing gear. I just can't imagine how desperate someone must be to think doing this - especially on a long haul flight - is a sensible plan.

 

[dotr]

rbbm.
Body found in garden ‘fell from plane’
"Citizen Digital said that after discovering the stowaway’s body, the London property owner called cops, who used a flight tracker to determine that the man had fallen from Kenya Airways KQ 100."

"Stowing away in a plane’s undercarriage is exceptionally dangerous.

"Though not common, stowaways have in the past plunged to the streets of London as planes lowered their landing gear."
"Experts believe that about three-quarters of stowaways don’t survive because of the extreme cold and lack of oxygen as the plane reaches cruising altitude."

In this file photo taken on February 18, 2015 a British Airways 747 aircraft flies over roof tops as it comes into land at Heathrow Airport in west London. Picture: AFPSource:AFP

 

[CoverMeCagney]

So if 75% die, and we get approx one faller every 5 years, it doesn't sound like a very frequent or successful method. Wonder how many stowaways are found alive or dead once landed at the airport.

 

[dotr]

From 2015..
One in four plane stowaways can survive, but London case is astonishing
"Given the number of desperate people attempting to reach Europe by land or sea on incredibly risky journeys, stowaways on aircraft are comparatively rare. But security at airports is usually tighter than at other borders, and the risks of an attempt are enormous, with the prospects of survival remote.
The fact that one of the two men who secreted themselves on the eight-hour BA flight from Johannesburg to London Heathrow has survived the journey, albeit in a serious condition in hospital, is astonishing. While neither the airline nor the police have yet confirmed it, the most likely scenario is that the stowaways would have hidden in the landing gear of the plane, exposing themselves to temperatures of -50C to -60C.

There have been occasional previous recorded cases of people making it alive, on shorter flights at lower altitudes. A 20-year-old Romanian man made it to Heathrow from Vienna in 2010, concealed in the undercarriage of a private jet that flew comparatively low, in air still thick enough for lungs to function.

But normally the combination of cold, lack of oxygen and air pressure experienced at a plane’s cruising height, outside the artificially maintained conditions of the cabin, would prove fatal."

"The Angolan capital responded to that event by tightening security to have all international flights followed by a security patrol vehicle for evening departures, keeping the plane’s undercarriage in full view.

That this latest incident appears to have originated in Johannesburg, a major international airport, will worry airport security experts, who have pointed out that if a stowaway can reach a plane’s exterior and hide, planting an explosive could also be possible."
rbbm

 

[LadyL]

there's already a thread in bizarre news
Ill alert a mod to merge

 

[Harmony 2]

fyi duplicate threads have been merged.

 

[TristanP]

I don’t like flying all that much when I’m *in* the plane!

I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be outside the plane.

I’m glad the person on the ground wasn’t killed or injured, too. That would have been even more tragic.

 

[CoverMeCagney]

I’m glad the person on the ground wasn’t killed or injured, too. That would have been even more tragic.

Or, like others have said, he didn't land in a busy park or street or even a road where he could easily have killed other people.

Perhaps the landing gear compartment needs to be the very last thing to be checked and then monitored before take off. I don't even know how this man was not seen on the runway, there are usual plenty of ground staff around the plane before it taxis.

 

[dotr]

Do any plane stowaways survive?
July 2 2019
"Other extreme wheel well survival stories
1969 - Armando Socarras Ramirez, 22, managed to withstand the effects of a flight from Havana, Cuba, to Madrid, suffering frostbite but no major damage

1996 - Pardeep Saini, 23, stayed alive during a 10-hour flight from Delhi to London, but his brother Vijay died falling out of the aircraft as it approached Heathrow

2000 - Fidel Maruhi survived the 4,000-mile journey on a Boeing 747 from Tahiti to Los Angeles

2002 - Victor Alvarez Molina, 22, got through the four-hour flight on a DC-10 from Cuba to Montreal, Canada

2014 - Yahya Abdi, 15, stowed away in a Boeing 767 from San Jose, California, to Maui, Hawaii"

"May 8, 2014
Officials in the US have released surveillance footage of the moment when a stowaway teenager emerged from the wheel mechanism of a plane. Yahya Abdi hid underneath the Boeing 767 aircraft that flew from California to Hawaii on April 20."

 

[PastTense]

wow
I wonder if he died prior to falling and his body just happened to wedge loose

He was stowed away in the landing gear area. They extend the landing gears just before landing and this is probably when the body came out. He was likely dead for hours before then.

 

[TristanP]

Or, like others have said, he didn't land in a busy park or street or even a road where he could easily have killed other people.

Perhaps the landing gear compartment needs to be the very last thing to be checked and then monitored before take off. I don't even know how this man was not seen on the runway, there are usual plenty of ground staff around the plane before it taxis.

Yes, it would be good if they could come up with a safety device or some other way to prevent it. I wonder how many times someone has done that but fallen out over the ocean and never been found??

 

[Bit of hope]

So if 75% die, and we get approx one faller every 5 years, it doesn't sound like a very frequent or successful method. Wonder how many stowaways are found alive or dead once landed at the airport.

Here is an answer to your question List of wheel-well stowaway flights - Wikipedia

 

[CoverMeCagney]

Here is an answer to your question List of wheel-well stowaway flights - Wikipedia

Thank you! Makes you wonder how many survive, unknown to authorities.

 

[Bit of hope]

Thank you! Makes you wonder how many survive, unknown to authorities.

Or how many more died and were never located......