Two bodies were discovered in the landing gear compartment of a JetBlue plane Monday after a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the airline said in a statement Tuesday.
JetBlue Flight 1801 departed New York’s Kennedy Airport at 7:49 p.m. on Monday and landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport at 11:10 p.m., according to flight tracker data. The bodies were discovered during a routine post-flight maintenance assessment of the plane, the airline said.
According to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, paramedics pronounced the two dead at the scene. It was unclear how long the people had been in the landing gear compartment.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Kennedy Airport, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how the individuals may have gained access to the aircraft.
Landing gear compartments, located under an aircraft’s wings and at the front of the plane, have long been used by people trying to travel undetected on airplanes. The airline did not say whether the two people found dead on Monday were stowaways.
Such attempts to hide in landing gear compartments have proven fatal in the past. The compartments open and close during takeoff and landing to deploy and retract wheels and other landing gear, and other stowaways have fallen to their deaths through the openings, sometimes landing in public areas along flight paths.
Those who can remain inside the compartment risk being crushed by the landing gear when retreating back into the aircraft, along with other hazards such as extreme temperatures, pressure changes and lack of oxygen. Many stowaways die of hypothermia.
Just on Christmas Day, a body was discovered in the wheel well of a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Hawaii. In 2023, a man was found alive in a landing gear compartment after a commercial flight from Algeria to France, although suffering from severe hypothermia.
An investigation was underway Tuesday to determine the identities of the two people discovered in Fort Lauderdale and how they could have accessed the plane before it left New York, JetBlue said.
“This is a heartbreaking situation and we are committed to working closely with the authorities to support their efforts to understand how this happened,” the airline said.
