• Man identified as a 29-year-old Kenyan who worked as a cleaner at JkIA, Sky News reports.
• He entered the undercarriage of a KQ Boeing 787 airliner so he could fly without papers and payment, Sky News says.
Image: FILE
Coming from an impoverished family in Western Kenya, he was ready to do whatever it took — including risking his life — for a better existence.
The man whose frozen body dropped off from a landing KQ plane into a garden in an affluent Southern London suburb on June 30 this year, has been identified and his parents traced by Sky News television in the UK.
The Star is not using the man's name or photo.
With a ground-shaking thud, the body fell when the plane released its wheels for landing at Heathrow, almost hitting a man lying on a sun lounge and reading a book.
He fell about 3,500 feet and his body left a crater.
Sky News, in an exclusive investigative segment and article published on Monday, identified the man as a 29-year-old Kenyan who worked as a cleaner at JKIA. He was living at Mukuru Kwa Njenga, the article says.
It was written by Africa correspondent John Sparks assisted by local journalist Christabel Ligamithe piece shows.
The TV investigation shows that the man used to work for Colnet Cleaning Services, the company that sent him and others to various clients at the airport.
Earning Sh300 daily, living in the slum yet overflowing with ambition, he was desperate, it seemed, and decided to try his fortune overseas, but through the backdoor.
He entered the undercarriage of a KQ airliner so he could fly without papers and paying, a suicidal adventure.
A friend with whom he rented a single-room mabati house in the slum told Sky news that he indeed harboured ambitions for a better life abroad.
"He was a friend, we went to the same county, we went to the same school. There was a job somewhere he was seeking....it was not in Kenya," he told Sky News.
"I don't know whether he flew," he said.
The news channel found the woman to whom the man had proposed marriage.
She identified the pictures of a small back bag, undergarments and shoes — which the London Metro police had recovered from the site of the stowaway's fall — as belonging to her fiance.
They had been in a relationship for two years and had plans to settle down, the article revealed.
The TV reporter learned from a taxi driver at the airport that Colnet Cleaning Services was missing a male employee at the end of June.
"[The taxi driver] picked the information [about a missing Colnet employee] from a couple of employees who were talking about it," the article said. This would be the lead to finding the roots of the man who fell from the sky.
"He never showed for work in the morning. Nobody knew where he disappeared. I called his phone, it was off," the fiance said.
"The following day, the supervisor called us and told us, 'There is somebody missing but we are not sure of the person. So we keep it a secret until we know the person'," she narrated.
Seeing pictures of the man she shared two years with, she said, "I just feel like I lost someone that I loved so much."
She broke down when seeing pictures of his belongings that she positively identified.
Sky News contacted the parents in Kakamega. They said neither the police nor the airport authorities had contacted them about their son.
"No one has got in touch," the father said.
"I don't know where to start or end because his [the son's] phone is not working," his mother said when asked whether the have tried looking for their son.
She said she wants his body brought home and buried in her family land ... "but the expenses".
(Edited by V. Graham)