2 bodies found in undercarriage of JetBlue plane at Fort Lauderdale airport

On Monday, two bodies were discovered in the undercarriage of a JetBlue plane after a flight from New York to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the airline said in a statement on Tuesday.

JetBlue Flight 1801 departed New York’s Kennedy Airport at 7:49 p.m. Monday and landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport at 11:10 p.m., flight tracking data shows. The bodies were discovered during routine maintenance on the plane after the flight, the airline said.

According to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, paramedics determined the two people were dead at the scene. It was unclear how long the people had been in the undercarriage compartment.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which manages Kennedy Airport, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about how the people may have gained access to the plane.

At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Carey Codd, a public information officer with the sheriff’s office, said the two people were men but their identities were not yet known. He said the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office will conduct autopsies to determine the cause of death.

Landing gear compartments, located under an aircraft’s wings and at the front of the aircraft, have long been used by people attempting to travel undetected on aircraft. The airline did not say whether the two people found dead on Monday were stowaways.

Such attempts to hide in undercarriage compartments have proven fatal in the past. The compartments open and close during takeoff and landing to extend and retract wheels and other landing components, and other stowaways have fallen through the openings to their deaths, sometimes landing in public spaces along the flight paths.

Those able to remain in the compartment risk being crushed by the landing gear as it is pulled back into the plane, along with other hazards including extreme temperatures, pressure fluctuations and lack of oxygen. Many stowaways die of hypothermia.

Just on Christmas Day, a body was discovered in the wheel well of a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Hawaii. In 2023, a man was found alive in an undercarriage compartment after a commercial flight from Algeria to France, although suffering from severe hypothermia.

JetBlue said an investigation was underway Tuesday to determine the identities of the two people spotted in Fort Lauderdale and how they may have accessed the plane before departure in New York.

“This is a heartbreaking situation and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this came to be,” the airline said.