Body parts fall from plane approaching JFK

[question everything]

Body parts fall from plane approaching JFK

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pieces of a man's body fell from the wheel well of a South African Airways passenger plane bound for John F. Kennedy International Airport on Tuesday and landed in the yard of a suburban home, police said.

A U.S. customs inspector discovered the rest of the man's body at 7:30 a.m. (1130 GMT) after Flight 203 landed in New York from Johannesburg, South Africa, said a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees area airports.

A South African Airways spokeswoman said it appeared to have been a stowaway attempt. She said the plane had stopped in Dakar, Senegal, on its way to New York.

(snip)

The body parts, which included the right leg, part of the spine and a hip, struck a garage roof of the home in South Floral Park, New York, before landing in the backyard, police said.

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/050607/3/223z2.html

[evlbstrd]

1. Yikes!

As desparate as we here in the US may feel, that was a truly desparate person.

[Megahurtz]

9. Truely desperate.

And I would hate to be the person that owned the house and made that gruesome discovery.:puke:

[Name removed]

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[sakabatou]

2. Ew.

[kedrys]

3. Ewwwwwwww!

I am *so* grossed out.

[RandomKoolzip]

4. If only Charles Fort were still alive....

(sigh)

[question everything]

8. OK, who was Charles Fort?

Hey, I don't even know what "Nick and Jessica" are/is/was..

[oneighty]

15. Charles Fort

'Book of the Damned' He was fascinated with/by mysterious objects falling from the sky-as well as other interesting and strange unbelievable happenings.

Worth reading if you like that sort of thing. I think there is something like a 'cult' formed around him. Fortean?

180

[RandomKoolzip]

17. Old guy from the early 1900's who documented instances

of "objects" falling from the sky (frogs, meat, hay, pasta, etc.) in showers. Happened a lot more than you'd expect.

Also one of the first guys to take UFO research seriously, before there was such a nomenclature.

[barb162]

26. especially within ten minutes after a tornado has passed

[realcountrymusic]

29. charles fort

http://www.research.umbc.edu/~frizzell/info

[bananas]

31. Fortean Times Magazine

Fun reading: Fortean Times Magazine
"Fortean Phenomena" refers to the kind of stuff he investigated.
It's like the Weekly World News,
except it's all true!
http://www.forteantimes.com/

[Richard Steele]

33. Fort was a SERIOUS researcher who investigated bizarre stuff.

Currently, his greatest legacy is that anything PARANORMAL falling from the sky is referred to as a "Fortian Event".

He gets lumped in with the :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: crowd, because he chose to investigate some STRANGE stuff.

The simple TRUTH is:
Every once in a while, entire communities have witnessed some strange things falling from clear skies.

Entire towns have seen "rains" of:
Live frogs
Dead fish
Small pebbles which relate to no "geological strata" within 1000 miles...

This is not some "Supermarket Tabloid" bullshit...
When a small town of 3500 people experiences a RAIN of frogs, 3500 people see it first hand!
And all 3500 are VERY willing to talk about it!
From the Bagboys to the MAYORS, there are THOUSANDS of statements regarding these "Fortean Events"!

Fort made the mistake of attempting to investigate and catalogue these occurences like a REAL SCIENTIST,
instead of just publishing some boring non-controversial thesis like a POLITICIAN.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. So was it a stowaway that died

and was then dismembered? Or did someone stow away body parts?? :wtf:

[Codeine]

7. Presumably

He got cut up by the action of the landing gear retracting. The landing gear compartment is a popular place to try and stowaway in, but it's a dangerous and tight-fitting place with lots of hydraulic stuff going on.

[mtnester]

13. What a horrible way to die...

OK, my life seems better right now. Dear God how horrible.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. Thanks I get it now

yuck

[LiberallyInclined]

25. it's also not pressurized, and gets very cold.

i remember reading a piece in Reader's Digest many years ago about two guys who did this to get out of cuba- one lived, one didn't.

[splat@14]

24. The wheel well doesn't have much room for anything

beyond the gear assembly itself. he was probably mangled and killed when the gear retracted. Its about an 8-10 hour trip and at >30000 feet, its well below zero. I'm sure they were frozen chucks of human that dropped.

Very desparate, kinda like making a boat out of a `56 Chevy to escape Cuba except the chances of survival are less in the wheel well than in the Chevy.

[TaleWgnDg]

27. Well, now we know approximately when (and where) the . . .

wheels come down for landing! Uummmm, forgive my attempted humor.



.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

36. Plus, the wheels are spinning as they retract

I'm not sure what the RPMs are for an eight-foot diameter wheel racing across the concrete at 160+ mph, but I'm sure it could make a mess out of any soft tissue it touched.

Horrible way to die.

[KDLarsen]

32. Most likely..

And he's most likely from Dakar, since that's where SAA does their tech stops enroute from Johannesburg.

[uppityperson]

6. Now that would ruin my day.

gross even for me.

[jayctravis]

10. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHH!

Only thing that could make this worse would be having it land on your windshield while you're driving.

[all.of.me]

22. oh yuck!!!

that would make me puke. and go off the road. and never sleep again.

[Wilms]

11. Only in NY.

What a town.

[The_Casual_Observer]

12. So much for international airport security

[Cocoa]

16. I hate when that happens

does insurance cover that?

[lynne]

19. Yep, it's covered -

less your deductible.

However, you will probably find a "Falling Body Parts" exclusion attached to your renewal policy. ;-)

[DemoTex]

18. There have been successful wheel-well stowaways (long haul oceanic).

One was from Havana, Cuba to Madrid, Spain. The guy was at the equivalent of Mt. Everest summit + 6000 ft for over eight hours. He dropped to the tarmac in Madrid from the Boeing 707's wheel-well, severely hypothermic, but lived to tell about it. I would know exactly where to hide in a wheel-well to avoid injury. Most would not. Certainly not Boxcar Willie.

[Dogmudgeon]

23. Several people have done it and lived

But it's got to be a terrible experience in its own right.

Assuming you have the presence of mind to dress warmly for the hypothermia (as cold as -50F), and know where to put yourself to avoid being dismembered by the landing gear, you still have to be in extraordinary shape to deal with the lack of oxygen for up to 18 hours (Transatlantic, only 6 hours or so).

I think I would work on my Raul Castro disguise instead.

--p!

[Name removed]

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[annabanana]

21. this isn't the first time....

I live about 9 miles from JFK... right along a flight path. A couple of years ago some poor soul fell from a wheel well and landed about 4 blocks away... Some poor woman came across him while she was walking her dog.

They just don't understand that a person can't survive up there outside of the plane.

[Catherine Vincent]

28. I just read this. How horrible.

The woman that lived in the house must be a liberal. A conservative wouldn't have said what she said: "But I am very glad that I live where I do," she said, "so I don't have to run for my life like this man probably was doing."

[Bucky]

30. Yeh, I'd like to fly to New York, but it'd cost me an arm and a leg

So I guess I'll just back out.

[eissa]

37. That's bad!

But I can't stop laughing! Agh.....the guilt!

[Name removed]

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