Stowaway falls from plane
The flight from Johannesburg to London covers 9,000 km. and takes over 11 hours. It’s unclear if the man found dead on the roof came from the same plane in which a living-stowaway was found the same morning, but police are looking into that possibility. The stowaway found alive, also a man, was taken to hospital and is in serious condition.
The man who fell to the roof may have already been dead, or close to it, when the plane opened its undercarriage and lowered its wheels for landing. A 2012 study found that 75 percent of stowaways do not survive and that those that do survive are on shorter haul flights.
Extreme low temperatures and a lack of oxygen make surviving a long-haul flight unlikely and aviation expert, David Learmount, editor of Flight International Magazine, told the Daily Mail that security measures should prevent such incidences from occurring. He said it calls security in Johannesburg into question.
Undercarriage survival unlikely
It is believed that if stowaways are still alive when the undercarriage opens then they are unconscious and therefore unable to prevent themselves from falling. Learmount believes that the man who survived must have found his way into the cargo area of the plane, or some other area.
“I do not see how anybody could survive 11 hours at 35,000 feet and at less than -50 C. I don’t think we can assume these two men were at the same part of the plane,” he said. “If someone is to survive as a stowaway then they have to get into an area of the plane that is pressurized and heated.”
It is not the first time that a body has fallen into this area of London from a plane. Three years ago a male stowaway from Angola fell into a street not far from the area in which this latest man fell. The man who fell in 2012 may also have already been dead before the fall.
