Mystery of the man who fell to earth

[dipsydoodle]

In September 2012, a man in his twenties was found dead in Portman Avenue, a suburban street in west London.

He had suffered horrendous injuries to his head and face, but had no identity papers on him - and no one had reported him missing.

It soon became clear that the man must have fallen from a plane flying overhead on to the street below.

Rob Walker has been following the police investigation into who he was and how he arrived on Portman Avenue.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22847065 includes 7.39 video

[Cirque du So-What]

1. Tragic story

a story of hope that ended badly. After enduring horrific conditions that led this young man to seek a better life, to meet such a violent end is especially tragic.

[Ash_F]

2. Don't know if it helps, but I doubt he was conscious when he fell. /nt

[Cirque du So-What]

3. I wonder

if he was even alive when he fell. Seems to me that if exposure to -60 degrees didn't kill him, lack of oxygen would. In any event, can you imagine the feeling when the landing gear was retracted into that space? I'm not claustrophobic, but it gives me the willies just thinking about it.

[Ash_F]

4. Probably not. I have read that the survival rate of these is basically zero.

People need oxygen. It doesn't matter how hardy you are. I hope that they can identify him, so that his kin can at least know what happened to him. He may not have had a family too.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. I doubt the low oxygen would kill him that quickly, unless he got cerebral or pulmonary edema

It's not much higher than the tops of the highest mountains, and climbers survive longer than the length of a plane flight without supplementary oxygen. They're acclimatised, of course, but they're doing exercise, rather than lying still. He'd feel awful, if still conscious, and could easily be vomiting, losing coordination, and other nasty symptoms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altitude_sickness

But I think it would be the cold that would be far more likely to kill him.

[Ash_F]

7. There was a recent article about this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19562101

"At 18,000ft (5,490m), experts say, hypoxia will set in, causing weakness, tremors, light-headedness and visual impairment. By 22,000ft (6,710m) the stowaway will struggle to maintain consciousness as their blood oxygen level drops. Above 33,000ft (10,065m) the lungs require artificial pressure to function normally."

Most airliners cruise above 33,000 ft.

"In 2010 a 20-year-old Romanian survived a flight from Vienna to Heathrow stowed in the undercarriage, but only because the private jet flew below 25,000ft due to bad weather."

[Judi Lynn]

5. The information about what really happens to people inside the wheel wells

should be far more well known to people everywhere, until it's simply common knowledge,
even to the point in attaching universally understood images on the airplanes themselves at the entrance points to make certain even people who can't read understand there's no future at all in going in there prior to the flight.

It would make a lot of right-wingers mad having people go out of their way to save lives, but maybe they should have to sacrifice some of their fun in hearing of the deaths of stowaways, just as they hope for the poor to sacrifice their lives by not having access to medical treatment.

This is such a sad story, and made sadder still hearing the coroner say that in that area alone, near the airport, she has already had to deal with six other dead airplane stoways falling from the sky before this young man.

It's nice to know he had a kind, good friend who cared for him before he tried to make it to England.

[Ash_F]

8. I think a visual warning sticker on the underside would be effective.

I remember seeing a one on a transformer when I was child. I had no idea what electricity was, but that picture was enough to keep me from going near it, and left an impression on me to this day.

Here, I found it.