The aircraft had just completed a flight of 2 hours and 43 minutes.
The American low-cost airline JetBlue announced this Tuesday, January 7. Two people were found dead in the landing gear compartment of one of its planes. The bodies were discovered Monday evening after the plane landed in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, during a “routine post-flight maintenance inspection,” JetBlue said. The identities of the victims have not been publicly confirmed.
The plane, an Airbus A320-232 with flight number 1801, took off from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. According to Flightradar24, a real-time flight tracking service, it landed at 11:03 p.m. It would have traveled 1,720 km with an estimated flight time of 2 hours and 43 minutes.
“At this time, the identity of the individuals and the circumstances surrounding how they gained access to the aircraft are still under investigation,” the company said, as cited by ABC.
Clinging to the landing gear of a plane that had just crossed half the Pacific
On December 24, at Kahului Airport in Maui (Hawaii), a lifeless body was found hanging from the landing gear of an American United Airlines plane. The flight departed from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on the morning of the 24th and landed in Maui the same day in the afternoon.
Read also: Man found clinging to landing gear of plane that had crossed halfway across the Pacific
Hawaii authorities said they are investigating the facts to find out where and how the stowaway was able to gain access to this location on the plane. This plane had made a 4-hour stopover in Chicago coming from Sao Paulo in Brazil before leaving for Hawaii where it arrived after an 8-hour flight. The victim had thus crossed half the Pacific with temperatures around -60°C, which combined with the lack of oxygen, left him with very little chance of survival.
