A man sunbathing in his back garden in Clapham, London, was almost hit by a human body that fell from the sky just before 4PM on Sunday.

The body, which landed less than a metre from the man, was that of a stowaway who fell from a Kenya Airways plane, which was travelling from Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to Heathrow.

The main story here is that a man was so desperate for a better life, he felt it worth taking the risks associated with trying to cling onto a plane’s landing gear during an almost 7 000 kilometre flight.

Via the BBC, here’s the flightpath:

A next-door neighbour spoke about the moments after the man’s body landed:

The neighbour, who did not want to be named, said he heard a “whomp” so he looked out of an upstairs window and saw the body and “blood all over the walls of the garden”.

“So I went outside, and it was just then the neighbour came out and he was very shaken,” he said.

The neighbour said a plane spotter, who had been following the flight on an plane tracking 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 the body had fallen from a Kenya Airways flight.

Describing the victim, he said: “One of the reasons his body was so intact was because his body was an ice block.”

According to Kenya’s Civil Aviation Authority chief, Gilbert Kibe, the stowaway was probably an employee at Nairobi’s main airport, and therefore had legal access to the airport.

Kibe added that security was tight at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, and the man wouldn’t have been able to cross the runway without being seen:

Police believe the victim fell from the landing gear compartment of the plane – where a bag, water and some food were found when it landed…

“They do check every part of the airplane, including the undercarriage, the wheels, the brakes, the tyre condition, the wheel well that is above there. They inspect everything. So when those checks were being done, it is not likely that person was there, otherwise he would have been seen.

“So at which point the person gained access, that is the mystery,” Mr Kibe said.

It’s reported that the man who was sunbathing at the time, an Oxford graduate in his 20s, is very shaken up, and has returned home to stay with his family for the time being.

[source:bbc]