When Pam Hearne of Long Island heard “a very loud bang” at 7 AM outside her South Floral Park home near JFK Airport, she judged it to be a cracking tree or noisy neighbors. Three and half hours later, she noticed a human leg and part of a torso in her yard.
“I thought it was a really sick joke,” said Ms. Hearne, a special education teacher, after examining the charred limb sporting a white Adidas sneaker. Police confirmed for her later that the body parts that left a watermelon-sized hole in her detached garage were indeed human.
The human remains appear to have fallen from thousands of feet above during the landing approach of a South African Airways flight from Dakar, Senegal. At five and half miles from JFK Airport, Ms. Hearne’s home would be about where landing gear would have been lowered.
A New York customs inspector was the first to spot the rest of the man still stuck to the wheel well of South African Airways Flight 203, which began in Johannesburg and stopped in Dakar, departing again at 11:40 PM EST.
The pilot noticed “unusual vibrations” during takeoff but a diagnostic check returned a verdict that everything was normal.
The cause of death, pending an autopsy, could be crushing by the doors that hold the wheel, the super cold temperatures of altitudes, or oxygen deprivation.
“I guess it was some poor soul who dreamed to look for his freedom,” Hearne said. “I’m hoping he wasn’t in much pain.”
The New York Times reported that since 1947, a known 69 stowaways have boarded 59 commercial flights. Only 15 of them have survived.
Dr. Stephen J. H. Veronneau, a physician specializing in aerospace medicine at the Federal Aviation Administration offices in Oklahoma City, spends part of his time tracking instances like this one.
“The surprising thing is that there are any survivors at all,” he said. In some cases, survivors may have fallen into a “hibernative arresting state.”
