LONDON: A stowaway fell from the undercarriage of a jet as it approached Heathrow Airport after a 9-hour flight from Nairobi, landing in a south London garden, police and airline officials said Monday.
The Metropolitan Police force said the body of an unidentified man was found in a residential garden in south London’s Clapham area on Sunday, and it’s believed he fell from a plane.
He has not yet been identified. Police said a post-mortem would be held to determine the cause of death.
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 it landed.
The airline called the death “unfortunate” and said it was cooperating with British and Kenyan authorities.
Stowing away in a plane’s undercarriage is exceptionally dangerous. Experts believe roughly three-quarters of stowaways do not survive because of the extreme cold and lack of oxygen as the plane reaches cruising altitude.
Though not common, stowaways have in the past plunged to the streets of London as planes lowered their landing gear. In September 2012, a 30-year old from Mozambique, Jose Matada, died after falling from the undercarriage of a Heathrow-bound flight from Angola.
Body found in London garden fell from Heathrow-bound plane from Nairobi
Body found in London garden fell from Heathrow-bound plane from Nairobi
- Body has not yet been identified
- Bag, water and food discovered in plane’s landing-gear compartment after landing
More than 9,000 flights canceled as major winter storm bears down across much of US
- “Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X
DALLAS: More than 9,000 flights across the US set to take off over the weekend have been canceled as a major storm expected to wreak havoc across much of the country threatens to knock out power for days and snarl major roadways.
Roughly 140 million people were under a winter storm warning from New Mexico to New England.
The National Weather Service forecast warns of widespread heavy snow and a band of catastrophic ice stretching from east Texas to North Carolina.
Forecasters say damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival that of a hurricane.
Ice and sleet that hit northern Texas overnight were moving toward the central part of the state on Saturday, the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said.
“Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X.
Low temperatures will be mostly in the single digits for the next few nights, with wind chills as low as minus 24 Celsius.
About 68,000 power outages were reported across the country at 8 a.m. ET, about 27,600 of them in Texas. Snow and sleet continued to fall in Oklahoma.
After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping about a foot of snow from Washington through New York and Boston, the weather service predicted.
Temperatures reached minus 34 C just before dawn in rural Lewis County and other parts of upstate New York after days of heavy snow.
Governors in more than a dozen states sounded the alarm about the turbulent weather ahead, declaring emergencies or urging people to stay home.
