FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (WFLA) — Two people were found dead in the landing gear compartment of a JetBlue plane at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, the airline announced.
The two people were found dead during a routine post-flight maintenance inspection on Monday, according to JetBlue.
The flight had traveled from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
"This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred," JetBlue Corporate Communications said.
The identities of the two and how they accessed the aircraft remain under investigation, JetBlue said.
Monday's incident comes just two weeks after a similarly tragic discovery at an airport in Hawaii, when a body was found in the landing compartment of a United Airlines flight that had arrived from Chicago on Christmas Eve.
“The wheel well was only accessible from outside of the aircraft. At this time, it is not clear how or when the person accessed the wheel well,” a spokesperson for United Airlines said at the time.
Jay VonBrimer, a veteran pilot who spoke with Nexstar's KHON after the United incident, said it was highly unlikely that a person would get stuck in the wheel wells of an aircraft unintentionally, suggesting that those who attempt to enter the compartment are potential stowaways.
“They just didn’t understand how non-survivable it would be to try and ride that aircraft up at those altitudes for that period of time," VonBrimer said.
