London Metropolitan Police say they came across a body of a stowaway, who fell from the undercarriage of a Kenya Airways flight, as it approached Heathrow Airport and landed in a south London garden on Sunday. The flight in question originated in Nairobi, Kenya, and was bound for London, according to Kenya Airways officials, who issued a statement addressing the discovery.
“The incident has been treated as a sudden death and is now a police matter. The police have already been in contact with the Kenya High Commission to help identify and name the person,” the airline said in the statement.
The owner of the house told the Mirror that the man landed face down on the property, narrowly missing a lodger who was sunbathing in the garden at the time.
“It was horrific,” she said. “We heard a loud bang. I thought it was from the building work we are having done…my husband went to look and saw the body lying in the middle of the lawn.”
“I heard a ‘whomp,’” a neighbor said. “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.”
Authorities say they discovered a bag, water and food in the plane’s landing gear compartment, suggesting the man may have hid himself there and fallen out mid-flight. While their investigation is ongoing, police said the death is not being treated as suspicious.
The unidentified stowaway is not the first to take a fatal plunge from an aircraft; in September of 2012, a 30-year-old stowaway from Mozambique fell to his death under similar circumstances, from a London-bound flight from Angola.
