Mental Note . . .

. . . when stowing away aboard an airplane, do not stowaway in the landing gear. Or so a man found out the hard way when he did just that on a South African Airways flight from Dakar to New York. No one had any idea the man was (kind of) onboard until ground crews found the parts of him that hadn't fallen from the wheel well into a New York woman's backyard.

Long Island resident Pam Hearne was startled when she heard a loud bang come from outside and totally grossed out when she realized it was the sound of a shoed leg still attached to a partial torso hitting her garage roof and bouncing into her yard. Apparently, the man's body was drawn and quartered when the landing gear deployed as the flight made its final approach toward a New York airport. Ouch.

Luckily, the plane only suffered minor damage and slight staining to its wheel. No word yet on who the genius was that put himself through the equivalent of a human meat grinder.