Body Falls Off Airplane, Lands in London Garden Before the Plane Lands: Reports

Body Falls Off Airplane, Lands in London Garden Before the Plane Lands: Reports
This is a undated photo of a Kenya Airways Airbus 310. (AP Photo/Airbus Industries)
Jack Phillips
7/1/2019
Updated:
7/1/2019

A Kenya Airways plane landing at Heathrow Airport and dropped a body into a garden in London.

According to The Star in Kenya, the Metropolitan Police in London on July 1 said it informed Kenya Airways that the body fell from the landing gear before the flight landed.

The paper noted that it was suggested the man was a stowaway hidden in the undercarriage of the aircraft.

Police found a bag containing food and clothing at the rear of the left landing gear.

The man’s identity was not disclosed.

Kenya Airways confirmed the incident to local media.

“On Sunday, June 30, a body of a yet to be identified male stowaway landed in a garden in the Borough of Lambeth, South London, suggesting the Stowaway was hidden in the undercarriage of the aircraft,” the statement from the airline said, reported the Tuko news website.

The owner of the garden immediately called the authorities after the body was discovered.

It’s not clear if the man died while in the undercarriage or was killed by the fall.

According to the Star, police in the United Kingdom are in contact with Kenyan authorities to identify the person. No damage was done to the aircraft, and it was cleared for operation.

A statement from Scotland Yard told the Daily Mirror: “A post-mortem examination will be carried out in due course. Police are working to establish the man’s identity.”

“A crime scene was put in place but has since been closed,” the agency said. “The death is not being treated as suspicious. Enquiries are underway to establish the full circumstances. At this point, police believe the man was a stowaway and had fallen from the landing gear of an inbound Kenya Airways flight to Heathrow Airport.”

A flight from Nairobi to London takes nearly nine hours.

Other details about the incident were not provided.

10 Dead in Texas Plane Crash

In Texas, ten people on board a small plane were killed in a fiery crash Sunday morning when the aircraft struggled to gain altitude after taking off from a suburban Dallas airport, veered to one side and plunged into a hangar, local authorities and witnesses said.
A twin-engine plane crashed into this hangar at Addison Airport in Addison, Texas, on June 30, 2019. (Shaban Athuman/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
A twin-engine plane crashed into this hangar at Addison Airport in Addison, Texas, on June 30, 2019. (Shaban Athuman/The Dallas Morning News via AP)

Federal officials said two crew members and eight passengers were killed when the twin-engine plane, scheduled to fly to St. Petersburg, Florida, crashed at the Addison Municipal Airport at 9:11 a.m. The identities of those killed were not immediately released.

“We don’t know a lot about the people on board at this point,” National Transportation Safety Board Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg said.

Officials say the Beechcraft BE-350 King Air hit a hangar that then burst into flames with black smoke billowing from the building as firefighters sprayed it with water. A plane and helicopter in the hangar were damaged, but there were no people in the building.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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