A man plunged to his death from a holiday jet on to the runway at Gatwick Airport this morning.

He was the second person to die in a fall from an aircraft in just two days.

An airport worker watched in horror as the man, who has not yet been identified, fell on to the main runway at about 9.15am today from a British Airways Boeing 777 flying to Cancun, Mexico.

Mike Ingle, duty manager at Gatwick, said: "We have no idea how he could have got there. The police are on the site and the investigations are ongoing."

Yesterday the body of a man in his twenties was found in a field in the grounds of Broadstone Farm, near Rudgwick, on the West Sussex-Surrey border, at 5.30pm.

Police said his injuries were consistent with his having fallen from an aircraft.

The field lies underneath flight paths from both Gatwick and Heathrow.

Police refused to say whether they thought the man was a stowaway.

A police spokesman said inquiries were continuing and the man, who was white, 5ft 8in tall, with short black hair and a tanned complexion, had yet to be identified.

The man was wearing a red and white sports top with the words Bozz Sports across it, blue tracksuit trousers with red slashes and buttons down the sides, and white Fila trainers.

Mr Ingle said: "There is absolutely nothing to link these two deaths at the moment."

He added that services were disrupted earlier this morning following the incident at Gatwick but were now back to normal.