Two people have been found dead in the landing gear compartment of a JetBlue plane that landed in Florida, the airline said.
The grim discovery was made on Monday night. The bodies were found during a routine inspection after the plane had landed.
“The circumstances surrounding how they accessed the aircraft remain under investigation,” said a statement from JetBlue.“This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred.”
The plane landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport and had most recently flown from New York’s John F Kennedy airport.
The airline said on Tuesday that the bodies were discovered during a post-flight maintenance inspection after it operated as Flight 1801 from New York, according to CNN. JetBlue added that an investigation has been launched into the circumstances of how the two persons gained access the plane.
“The Broward county medical examiner’s office will perform autopsies to determine the causes of death of both individuals,” Carey Codd, spokesperson for the Broward county sheriff’s office, said.
The identities of the two people have not been confirmed, but it is believed that they are Jamaicans.
The deaths are the second such incident in recent weeks. Over the holiday period a dead body was found in the wheel well of a United Airlines plane from Chicago after it landed in Hawaii. The airline said the wheel well of the Boeing 787-10 was only accessible from the outside the aircraft, and that it was unclear how or when the person accessed it.
Stowing away in the wheel well of a plane is extremely risky due to the low oxygen levels and freezing temperatures at the altitudes in which planes fly. About 80% of people who hide in the wheel well or another external compartment of an aircraft die during a flight, an 2011 FAA report found.
