On Monday night, two individuals were discovered dead in the wheel well of a JetBlue plane after it landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The airline reported the incident, and it is believed that the deceased may be Jamaican nationals, although their identities have not yet been confirmed.
The airline on Tuesday said the bodies were discovered during a post-flight maintenance inspection after it operated as Flight 1801 from John F Kennedy International Airport in New York. The airline also stated that an investigation has been launched to ascertain the circumstances of how the now-deceased accessed the plane.
Carey Codd, a spokesperson for the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, stated that the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office would perform autopsies to determine the causes of death for both individuals. The investigation into how they managed to enter the plane and the circumstances surrounding their deaths is ongoing.
The tragic discovery highlights the dangers of attempting to stow away on aircraft, a perilous journey that often results in fatalities due to extreme conditions at high altitudes.
Between 1947 and June 2015, a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) researcher had documented 113 such attempts on 101 flights. These 113 people were all male and predominantly under age 30. There were 86 deaths, a 76 percent fatality rate, with many unidentified decedents. There may be additional undocumented cases of wheel-well stowaways. A further 19 incidents, identified since 2015, are listed here.
Wheel-well stowaways face considerable risk of death during all phases of flight. Some have been unable to remain in the well during takeoff and landing and have fallen to their death. Immediately after takeoff, the landing gear retracts into the wheel wells, with the potential to crush the stowaway. If the stowaway is able to avoid physical injury, they still face hypothermia and hypoxia risks at the extremely low temperatures and low atmospheric pressure at high altitude, as well as hearing damage from prolonged exposure to the dangerously high noise levels outside the cabin.
