A suspected stowaway who is believed to have fallen from the landing gear of a flight into Heathrow Airport has been found dead in a London garden.
Photo: 123RF
The body - believed to be that of a man - was found in Clapham just before 3.40pm BST on Sunday (2.40am Monday NZT).
The individual is believed to have fallen from a Kenya Airways flight from Nairobi, police said.
A neighbour said the man fell a metre away from a resident who had been sunbathing in the garden.
The man, 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 Metropolitan Police said a post-mortem examination will be carried out in due course and his death was not being treated as suspicious.
Kenya Airways said the aircraft was inspected and no damage was reported.
A bag, water and some food were found in the landing gear compartment on the aircraft when it landed.
A spokesman for the airline said: "The 6,840km flight takes eight hours and 50 minutes. It is unfortunate that a person has lost his life by stowing aboard one of our aircraft and we express our condolences.
"Kenya Airways is working closely with the relevant authorities in Nairobi and London as they fully investigate this case."
It is not the first death of this kind on the Heathrow flight path.
In June 2015, one man was found dead on the roof of notonthehighstreet.com's headquarters on Kew Road, Richmond, while another was found in a critical condition after they both clung on to a British Airways flight from Johannesburg.
In August 2012, a man's body was found in the undercarriage bay of a plane at Heathrow after a flight from Cape Town.
- BBC