Stowaway's Death Unwittingly Caught on Film

 

On February 22nd, 1970, an Australian Amateur Photograpger, John Gilipin, was taking pictures at the Sydney Airport. 

One particular airplane heading for Tokyo, began to take off from the runway and Gilipin began taking photographs of its flight. 

John wouldn't notice anything odd about the plane that day and when he was finished taking photographs, he headed home. 

What John didn't realize was that one of his photographs would become quite famous, even though it featured something quite tragic. 

On this same day, 14 year old Keith Sapsford, was also at the airport, but for a very different reason. 

Keith was a fugitive...kind of. 

Two weeks prior he had run away from a Catholic Boarding School, where his parents had sent him almost out of necessity for Keith's safety. 

It seems, according to Keith's father, that he had a bad case of Itchy Feet.

Since a very young age, Keith had been fascinated with how people in different parts of the world lived, and he wanted to travel to those places to find out. 

Since this was the late 1960's, there was no internet or social media, only books. And unfortunately, they didn't seem to help Keith's thirst for knowledge on such places. 

A few months before, Keith's parents had taken him on a trip in hopes it would quench his thirst, but when they got home, his Itchy Feet were still Itchy. 

Keith began taking off to explore and sometimes he would be gone for days. So his parents had enough and sent him packing for the Boarding School. 

However, the isolation of the Boarding School had the opposite effect on Keith than what his parents were hoping for.

Instead, it became like a prison to Keith, and he escaped. 

Two week later, on February 22nd, John Gilipin would get into his car, along with his camera, and head off to the Sydney Airport to take photographs. 

It is unknown how long John had been there when a Boeing Jumbo Jet began heading for the run way for take off. 

He began taking pictures as the plane sped up, and then lifted off the runaway and into the sky. 

What no one knew was that Keith was on that plane, not as a passenger, but as a stowaway. With it being 1970, security wasn't as heavy as it is nowadays, and Keith was able to make his way to the tarmac where he noticed the plane being boarded. He climbed in to the wheel well, undetected, and waited. 

Unfortunately, however, Keith would not make it to Tokyo with the plane. 

As the plane lifted into the sky and its wheels began to retract up inside the wheel wells, Keith fell out and fell 200 ft to his death. 

A week later, John Gilipin would develop his photographs from that day at the airport. It was then that he discovered that he had captured Keith's last moments alive. 

According to doctors and airplane technicians, even if Keith had not fallen out, it is unlikely he would have survived the flight due to colder temperatures at higher altitudes and lack of oxygen. 

The irony here, is that a few weeks prior to this happening, Keith's father had told him about a Spanish man who had died trying to stowaway on a plane, the same way Keith had. 

Unfortunately, Keith did not heed his father's warnings and he tragically died. 

He was only 14.