An inquiry is underway following the discovery of two deceased individuals on a plane shortly after it touched down at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida.
The JetBlue flight departed from JFK airport in New York on Monday, January 6, reaching Florida later that evening.
As per FlightAware.com, the plane took off shortly before 8pm local time and landed in Florida at 11:10pm, about 28 minutes behind schedule.
Upon arrival, two bodies were discovered within the landing gear of the aircraft.
A JetBlue spokesperson confirmed the incident, noting in a statement: “On Monday evening, January 6, at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLHIA), two individuals were found in the landing gear compartment of one of our aircraft during the routine post-flight maintenance inspection. Tragically, both individuals were deceased.”
The identities of the individuals have yet to be disclosed, and an investigation is ongoing to determine how they came to be in the plane’s landing gear.
“This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred,” the spokesperson added.
Florida news reporter Alex Browning shared images from the scene, showing a Broward County Sheriff’s van stationed outside the airport following the incident.
CBS News reported that a medical examiner joined sheriff’s deputies at the scene, focusing on the airport’s Terminal 3, which serves JetBlue.
This event follows a similar incident last month when a deceased person was found in the landing gear of a United Airlines flight.
The United Airlines plane had departed from Chicago and landed in Hawaii on Christmas Eve, where officials discovered a body in the ‘wheel well of the main landing gears’.
“The wheel well was only accessible from outside of the aircraft,” United Airlines stated, while a Maui Police Department spokesperson informed Hawaii News Now that an investigation was underway to understand how the individual ended up inside the compartment.
The Maui police have not provided additional information about the United Airlines incident.