Two people have been found dead in the landing gear compartment of a JetBlue plane that landed in Florida, the airline said.
The grim discovery was made on Monday night. The bodies were found during a routine inspection after the plane had landed.
“The circumstances surrounding how they accessed the aircraft remain under investigation,” said a statement from JetBlue.“This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred.”
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The plane landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport and had most recently flown from New York’s John F Kennedy airport.
The deaths are the second such incident in recent weeks. Over the holiday period a dead body was found in wheel well of a United Airlines plane from Chicago after it landed in Hawaii. The airline said the wheel well of the Boeing 787-10 was only accessible from the outside the aircraft, and that it was unclear how or when the person accessed it.
Stowing away in the wheel well of a plane is extremely risky due to the low oxygen levels and freezing temperatures at the altitudes in which planes fly. About 80% of people who hide in the wheel well or another external compartment of an aircraft die during a flight, an 2011 FAA report found.