Man's headless body found in office air conditioning after falling from British Airways plane

A decapitated man found mangled in a rooftop air conditioning unit died after falling from a jet coming into Heathrow .
Carlito Vale, believed to be 29, was still alive when he fell 1,400ft to his death when the undercarriage he was clinging to opened.

He had stowed away on a British Airways flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow on June 18 last year and died from his injuries after hitting the roof.

Mr Vale, an orphan from Mozambique, landed on the roof of Notonthehighstreet.com in Richmond, West London.


He was found after staff investigated the air conditioning unit, which had stopped working after Mr Vale's body became mangled inside.

The jet was passing over west London when the wheel wells of the landing gear opened.
Flight data showed the plane was at an altitude of around 1,400ft when it passed over the area where Mr Vale's body was found.

Another stowaway who survived on the same flight survived but has since disappeared. An inquest into the death at West London Coroner's Court heard his body was discovered in the shattered housing of an air conditioning unit after staff complained about the heat.

Facilities manager at Notonthehighstreet.com , Michael Bentley, went to investigate this fault to see if the system was blocked and made the gruesome discovery at around 9.25am.
A statement from Mr Bentley was read by coroner Kally Cheema at West London Coroner's Court today.

    It said: "At around 8.44am I received an email from colleagues claiming the air was stuffy and that they were falling asleep at their desks.
    "I went up to the roof to check the air conditioning unit. I saw what I can only describe as a bone sticking out of the smashed aluminium.At that point I thought I really hope that's not a body up there as it could only have come for a plane.
    "I Iooked in and saw a foot, then a leg, then saw it was a human face down inside the unit.
    "I emailed my manager and said 'I think I've found a body on the roof', he said 'what do you mean?'
    "I said 'no jokes, there's a body up there'."

A statement by his boss Jason Weston read: "I would describe the body as wearing some sort of Converse trainers, I only saw one foot and a leg that was wearing some sort of blue or grey trousers.

    "All I could see was lumps of matter and bones that had smashed the metal housing of the air conditioning unit."

A bag with a Mozambique passport and an out-of-date US visa found in a bag left at Johannesburg airport helped to identify Mr Vale.

Daily Mirror