2 Found Dead In JetBlue Plane’s Landing Gear Compartment In Florida

Two people were found dead inside the landing gear of a JetBlue plane after the aircraft landed in South Florida, authorities said.

The bodies were found Monday night during a routine post-flight maintenance inspection at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, the airline said.

“At this time, the identities of the individuals and the circumstances surrounding how they accessed the aircraft remain under investigation,” an airline spokesperson said.

Local authorities said they were called to the airport around 11:30 p.m. local time and that both individuals were pronounced dead at the scene.

“BSO’s Homicide and Crime Scene units responded to investigate the circumstances of the incident, and the investigation is ongoing,” the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) said in a statement.

The plane had just completed a flight from New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and landed just after 11 p.m., according to The New York Post.

The Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office is working to confirm the individuals’ causes of death. A representative there did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment Tuesday.

A spokesperson for the airport referred HuffPost’s questions to the airline but said there were no impacts to airport operations due to the incident.

Late last month, another body was found in the wheel well of a United Airlines plane after the aircraft touched down in Hawaii from Chicago. Authorities did not release any information on how the person ended up there.

Stowaways are known to jump into an aircraft during its takeoff by hanging onto the airliner’s landing gear, according to a 2011 report by the Federal Aviation Administration.

These individuals risk falling to their deaths, getting crushed when the landing gear retracts, dying from the engines’ heat, or dying from hypothermia, which is caused by extreme external temperatures, or hypoxia, which is caused by inadequate oxygen.