Travel
2 found dead in JetBlue plane’s landing gear after landing in Florida: reports
Body discovered in wheel well of United Airlines flight at airport
A mysterious body was discovered in a wheel well of a United Airlines plane after a flight from Chicago to Maui on Christmas Eve.
Straight Arrow News
Two people were found dead inside the landing gear of a JetBlue commercial airplane that landed Monday evening in Florida, according to reports.
The aircraft had landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after taking off from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. Once the plane arrived, the bodies were found during a routine post-flight maintenance inspection of the aircraft, JetBlue said in a statement provided to multiple outlets.
USA TODAY left a message Tuesday morning with JetBlue Airways that was not immediately returned.
The discovery of the two bodies comes nearly two weeks after another person was found dead on Christmas Eve inside the wheel well of a United Airlines plane that landed in Hawaii.
While it was not immediately clear how the two people ended up in the landing gear, stowaways have previously hidden in the airplane compartments to sneak onto flights.
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Body found in JetBlue landing gear
A JetBlue spokesperson said in a statement to media that the bodies were found during a routine inspection after the plane landed.
The individuals have not been publicly named and authorities continue to investigate how they accessed the landing gear of the aircraft, JetBlue told multiple outlets.
“This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred,” according to the statement quoted in reports.
USA TODAY has reached out to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office for more information.
Similar incident occurred Christmas Eve on United flight
Two weeks prior, another body was found inside the wheel well of a United Airlines plane that took off from Chicago O’Hare International Airport and landed at Kahului Airport on the Hawaiian island of Maui.
The compartment, which houses the airplane’s landing gear, was “only accessible from outside of the aircraft,” United said in a previous statement to USA TODAY.
Landing gear compartments commonly used by stowaways
While it is unclear whether the people were attempting to stow away on the flight, it’s not uncommon for people to use wheel wells, nose wells and other unpressurized areas to sneak onto aircraft.
Stowaways in the unpressurized wheel houses and cargo holds of planes have to contend with freezing conditions, with temperatures that can reach between minus 58 degrees and minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit, Reuters reported. A lack of oxygen and the risk of being crushed by the plane’s wheels also make the practice often a deadly one.
But while the fatality rate for most wheel well stowaways is high, some people have survived the ordeal.
A person was found alive in the undercarriage bay of an Algerian carrier’s aircraft in Paris last year. In January 2022, a man was found alive in the nose wheel of a cargo plane arriving from South Africa to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, and a man managed to ride in the landing gear compartment of an American Airlines flight from Guatemala to Miami in 2021 before being taken to the hospital upon arrival in the U.S.
In 2014, a 15-year-old boy reportedly was able to stow away in a plane’s wheel well and survive a 5½-hour Hawaiian Airlines flight from San Jose to Maui.
Contributing: Reuters
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com
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