FILE PHOTO: A JetBlue Airways jet comes in for a landing after flights earlier were grounded during an FAA system outage at Laguardia Airport in New York City, New York, U.S., January 11, 2023. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo
Two bodies were found inside the landing gear well of a JetBlue aircraft that flew to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport in Florida from New York's JFK Airport, The New York Times reported.
The two bodies "were discovered during a routine post-flight maintenance assessment of the plane, the airline said. Paramedics pronounced the two people dead at the scene, according to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. It was unclear how long the people had been in the landing gear compartment," reported Ali Watkins.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs JFK Airport, is investigating how the people gained access.
ALSO READ: Trump intel advisor Devin Nunes still dismisses Russian election meddling as a 'hoax'
Authorities did not release details about whether the people inside the compartment had stowed away. Dozens of such incidents have occurred over the decades as people have tried to infiltrate flights undetected.
On large commercial aircraft, stowaways in the landing gear compartment rarely survive, with a roughly 3 in 4 mortality rate for recorded incidents, according to Federal Aviation Administration data in 2015.
Those who attempt it often fall out of the plane as the gear is retracting; one such incident on a Kenya Airways flight over London in 2019 resulted in the stowaway fatally plunging from the sky into a man's garden as he was sunbathing.
Others who manage to stay in the compartment have been crushed by the massive gear assembly as it retracts, or die of hypothermia or hypoxia in the extreme cold and low-pressure environment.
Very occasionally, however, stowaways manage to survive the experience; one man in 2023 was discovered alive but in critical condition after hiding in the gear of an Air Algérie flight from Oran, Algeria to Paris.