A sunbather who narrowly avoided being hit by the frozen corpse of a stowaway that fell out of a Kenya Airways plane and into his London garden is too traumatized to return home, according to a report.
John Baldock, a software engineer, was in his back yard Sunday when the body dropped from the landing gear of the plane at an altitude of 3,500 feet during its approach to Heathrow.
The corpse landed just inches away from the Oxford grad, leaving a small crater in the garden of the $2.9 million home, where he rents a room in the city’s Clapham neighborhood, The Sun reported.
A neighbor told the UK newspaper that she was in her kitchen when she heard a loud noise.
“I thought my house was falling down. I went upstairs and looked out the window and saw the body,” the neighbor said. “I saw John outside. He was shaking and trembling. He wasn’t saying anything. He could hardly speak.
“My husband called the police. It was horrific,” she added.
After the near-miss, Baldock left to spend time in his hometown of Exeter, Devon, where his parents are helping him to overcome the traumatic event, the news outlet reported.
His friend Bob Renwick, from whom he rented the room, said: “He was so lucky not to be hit and killed. The impact obliterated the body.
“He didn’t even realize what it was to begin with. He was asleep and then there was a huge impact,” he continued. “The body literally landed one meter away from him and was obliterated. My friend was very shaken.”
The unidentified stowaway is believed to have been working at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, from where the flight departed.
“It looks highly likely he was an employee as security has been beefed up and no one without a pass could get near a plane. He could have been a baggage handler or one of a number of staff given air-side clearance,” a source told The Sun.
“It’s possible that he could have bribed someone to get inside the perimeter but this seems unlikely and the CCTV will hold the key,” he added, referring to surveillance footage.
The man probably blacked out just 20 minutes into the flight because of a lack of oxygen, and would have eventually frozen to death.
“There have been rare cases where stowaways have survived, but in the main they lose consciousness because of a lack of oxygen and hypothermia and then they fall when the wheels go down,” a source said.
In a statement to the UK’s Mirror, Kenya Airways said: “The incident has been treated as a sudden death and is now a police matter. The police have already been in contact with the Kenya High Commission to help identify and name the person.”
It added: “It is unfortunate that a person has lost his life by stowing aboard one of our aircraft and we express our condolences.”