Two our bodies had been found within the touchdown gear compartment of a JetBlue airplane on Monday after a flight from New York to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the airline mentioned in a press release on Tuesday.
JetBlue Flight 1801 departed Kennedy Airport in New York at 7:49 p.m. Monday and landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Worldwide Airport at 11:10 p.m., in line with flight tracker knowledge. The our bodies had been found throughout a routine post-flight upkeep evaluation of the airplane, the airline mentioned.
Paramedics pronounced the 2 folks lifeless on the scene, in line with the Broward County Sheriff’s Workplace. It was unclear how lengthy the folks had been within the touchdown gear compartment.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which manages Kennedy Airport, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark about how the people could have gained entry to the plane.
Touchdown gear compartments, situated beneath an plane’s wings and on the entrance of the airplane, have lengthy been utilized by folks making an attempt to journey undetected on airplanes. The airline didn’t say whether or not the 2 individuals who had been discovered lifeless on Monday had been stowaways.
Such makes an attempt to cover in touchdown gear compartments have confirmed lethal up to now. The compartments open and shut upon takeoff and touchdown to deploy and retract wheels and different touchdown elements, and different stowaways have fallen to their deaths from the openings, generally touchdown in public areas alongside flight paths.
Those that can keep inside the compartment danger being crushed by touchdown gear when it’s withdrawn again into the plane, together with different hazards, together with extreme temperatures, strain modifications and lack of oxygen. Many stowaways die of hypothermia.
As not too long ago as Christmas Day, a physique was found in a wheel effectively of a United Airways flight from Chicago to Hawaii. In 2023, a person was discovered alive in a touchdown gear compartment after a industrial flight from Algeria to France, although he was affected by extreme hypothermia.
An investigation was underway on Tuesday to find out the identities of the 2 people found in Fort Lauderdale and the way they may have accessed the plane earlier than it departed from New York, JetBlue mentioned.
“It is a heartbreaking scenario, and we’re dedicated to working intently with authorities to help their efforts to know how this occurred,” the airline mentioned.
