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Two bodies were discovered in the wheel well of a JetBlue flight that arrived in Fort Lauderdale from New York on Monday evening, the airline announced.
The grim discovery was made Monday night during a routine post-flight assessment of the plane, which departed John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York just before 8 p.m. Monday and landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport at 11:10 p.m., according to the airline.
Paramedics pronounced the two people dead at the scene, according to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.
“The circumstances surrounding how they accessed the aircraft remain under investigation,” JetBlue said in a statement to news outlets. “This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred.”
DEVELOPING: Two people were found dead in the wheel well of a JetBlue plane from New York City after it landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, the airline said Tuesday. https://t.co/uMfDuN2PeS
— WSVN 7 News (@wsvn) January 7, 2025
It was not immediately clear how the people, who have yet to be identified, wound up in the landing gear department.
This 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.
Back in 2021, a 26-year-old man survived a flight from Guatemala to Miami on Saturday after hiding in the airplane’s landing gear compartment.
As reported by CNN, the most common way stowaways hide on a plane is in the wheel well.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), more than 77 percent of people who attempt to hitch an illegal ride on an aircraft don’t survive. The cramped space in the wheel well offers little protection, and stowaways are often crushed when the landing gear retracts.
In many aircraft, the space is even smaller than a car trunk.
And conditions typically worsen once the flight ascends to higher altitudes. Oxygen levels become dangerously low, making it difficult for stowaways to remain conscious.
This is a breaking story. Please check back for updates.
