Stowaway who fell from plane into London garden 'may have been an airport worker', Kenyan official says

A stowaway who fell into a garden from a plane flying into Heathrow might have been an airport worker, a Kenyan official has said.

Police were called to Offerton Road in Clapham on Sunday after a frozen body plunged from the landing gear of a Kenya Airways flight and narrowly missed a sunbather.

On Wednesday, director general of the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority, Gilbert Kibe, told BBC Africa: "Whoever it is most likely had access to the airside because with the way security is tight, it's unlikely that an outsider would have been able to make his way through to the airside where an aeroplane is parked and be able to climb in.

"I'm suspecting it's probably somebody who had access to the airside."

He said usually before take off the captain or first officer would walk around the plane and check the undercarriage thoroughly.

Asked about security concerns the breach raised, he said: "That problem exists globally everywhere, it cannot be isolated to one airport."

According to reports in Kenya, British police have sent the dead man's fingerprints to authorities there to try to identify him.

The stowaway plunged 3,500ft from the plane at around 3.30pm on Sunday, nine hours after the flight set out from Nairobi.

One female neighbour described the noise of the crash as “an almighty bang”, as the corpse landed partly on concrete paving slabs and partly on a lawn.

“At first I thought it was some scaffolding falling down and thought nothing more about it,” she told MailOnline.

The falling body left a dent in pavement slabs in the garden of the rented £2.3 million Clapham property.