The migrant who fell to earth in 2,000ft horror jet plunge

Tragedy ... body is removed by cops

A MAN found dead on a quiet suburban street was a suspected stowaway who had plunged 2,000ft from a plane.

Cops believe he tumbled from the undercarriage as the jet was coming in to land at Heathrow.
Shocked residents told yesterday of their horror at seeing the man’s body lying on the pavement in leafy Mortlake, South West London.
Supermarket worker Jamie Notley, 19, said: “I was on my way to work when I heard a loud thump on the ground.
“I decided to walk further down to see if anyone had been hurt. It was horrific.”
Billy Watson, 26, who lives opposite where the body fell, said: “It was about four hours before the police covered him. Nobody was allowed out of their house, you could hear them saying, ‘stay inside!’”

Horror ... street where migrant's body lay

The area — ten miles from Heathrow — is under a flight path where planes open their undercarriage and lower wheels ready for landing.
Experts believe the victim — said to be in his 30s and from North Africa — was probably dead before he fell on Sunday morning.
Richard Taylor from the Civil Aviation Authority said: “Temperatures in the undercarriage reach -40°C at high altitudes, so he’s basically frozen to death. There is virtually no chance of someone surviving.
“Very often people get crushed to death by the landing gear when it retracts.
“It is surprising that people still do it. I guess they don’t realise they have very little chance of surviving.”

Jet fall ... body is believed to have dropped from Heathrow-bound plane

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “One of the lines of inquiry is that he could have been a possible stowaway.
“He may have fallen from a plane. It’s not yet been established where he’s come from.”
A man was found dead last month in the landing gear of a BA jet from Cape Town to Heathrow.
The body of a Pakistani stowaway, believed to have fallen from a plane, was found in a car park in Richmond, South West London, in 2001.
A month later another suspected Heathrow stowaway plunged to his death near a New York restaurant after sneaking aboard a US-bound flight.
Incredibly, a 20-year-old Romanian man SURVIVED temperatures of -41°C after hiding inside the landing gear of a Boeing 747 from Vienna to Heathrow in 2010.