FORT LAUDERDALE – Broward sheriff’s deputies and a medical examiner descended on Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport overnight after bodies were found in an aircraft compartment on a JetBlue Airways plane.
JetBlue issued a statement that said two people were found dead in an aircraft’s landing gear compartment on Monday night. The bodies were found during a routine inspection after the plane landed.
“The circumstances surrounding how they accessed the aircraft remain under investigation,” JetBlue said. “This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred.”
The carrier said the aircraft most recently operated as Flight 1801 from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
According to CBS News senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave, the Airbus A320 departed JFK on Monday night at 8:20 p.m. The night temperatures in New York were frigid. It arrived in Fort Lauderdale a few minutes late at 11:03 p.m. Its cruising altitude was approximately 38,000 feet for the two-hour and 43-minute flight, per flightradar24.