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Shocked residents have described seeing the twisted body of a suspected stowaway believed to have plummeted thousands of feet from a plane and crash-landed on a quiet residential street.

Residents living in Portman Avenue, Mortlake, below the Heathrow flightpath woke to find the young man’s bloodied body on the road outside their homes at 7.55am yesterday.

Scotland Yard is investigating suggestions the victim in his 30s tumbled from the plane as it prepared to land at Heathrow.

The man, who has not been formally identified, suffered multiple injuries.

However people who saw the aftermath of the tragedy described a gory scene, saying 'bits of his body were just everywhere'.

Billy Watson, 26, who lives opposite where the body fell, said: "I saw the body all twisted up outside. I heard someone outside and looked at the window at about half eight and the first thing I saw was this body across the road.

"His head was twisted one way and one of his legs was the wrong way round. His hip had popped out and one of his arms was behind him the wrong way.

""There was a big pool of blood coming from his head. Noone was around him when I first saw him but the police were on my side of the road.

"It was about four hours before they covered him over. They knocked at the door at around half nine and said the tent was on its way. Nobody was allowed out of their house, you could hear them saying 'stay inside, stay inside!'

"They had to wait for forensics to take pictures.

"It has been a bit sombre and it's quite creepy. I think they said he fell at around half 7 and the road opened again at about two o'clock. It was a good six hours before it was all clean. The council had to come and clean it and he just had a broom and a bucket."

James, 58, who lives one door down from where the body was found, added: "No one saw him fall because it was early on a Sunday morning.

He was face down with his feet by the wall and his head by the kerb. There was a lot of blood and his brain was scattered all over the pavement and on some of the cars.

"We assumed it could have been a crime scene but if you reflect on it, he would have been screaming out if he was being attacked.

Resident Joe Dodd said he did not hear anything in the night but woke to find the street outside sealed off by police.

He said: “When I got up at eight the body was still on the pavement. They had not moved it.

“We were not allowed out of our house for ages. There was police and ambulances everywhere. From where I was it looked like he had a head injury of some kind.

“There was loads of blood everywhere, all over the street and on a car.”

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “We were called to reports of a dead body at 7.55am yesterday. The victim had multiple injuries. The death is currently being treated as unexplained.

“Speculation that he may have been a stowaway who had fallen from a plane is one line of inquiry.”

A postmortem examination will be carried out later this week.