Two people were found dead in the landing gear compartment of a JetBlue plane following a flight from New York to Florida, airline officials confirmed.
The Airbus A320 departed from John F. Kennedy International Airport on Monday night at 8:20 p.m., arriving at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport just after 11 p.m., CBS News reported. The bodies were located shortly thereafter, during a routine post-flight maintenance inspection of the aircraft, airline officials said.
“The circumstances surrounding how they accessed the aircraft remain under investigation,” JetBlue said in a statement. “This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred.”
No further details were provided about the people found dead. They were not identified. And while it is still unclear how the pair gained access to the landing gear, stowaways in the past have hidden in airplane compartments to sneak onto flights. Per the Federal Aviation Administration, stowaways who aren’t crushed by the plane’s equipment often end up losing consciousness due to lack of oxygen or freezing once the plane hits cruising altitude.
Even prior to takeoff, temps in New York were frigid Monday night, hovering in the low 20s.
An investigation into the matter is ongoing.
The incident comes just two weeks after a body was discovered inside the wheel well of a United Airlines plane flying out of Chicago for the Kahului Airport on the Hawaiian island of Maui on Christmas Eve.
