The bodies of the stowaways who rode to Florida in a JetBlue airplane's landing gear compartment were reportedly decomposed when they were found by airport staff, according to a report.
The remains of the men were found on Monday inside the compartment after a JetBlue plane landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. An airline worker was inspecting the landing gear when they stumbled onto the deceased stowaways.
“A gate technician in the landing gear area noticed two males who appear to be Signal 7, advised they are not moving in the landing gear area,” an unidentified individual said over a police radio during the incident. "Signal 7" is a police radio code used to describe a dead body.
The flight departed Jamaica earlier in the day, leading to some speculation that the men who died are Jamaican, though there has been no official identification.
An anonymous law enforcement source told CNN that the bodies were badly decomposed when they were found, which, if true, likely indicates that the stowaways were onboard the aircraft for multiple flights.
If they climbed into the landing gear compartment in Jamaica, they likley did not survive the plane's first stop. The A320 departed from Kingston just after 1 a.m., where it flew to JFK International Airport in New York. It was below 30 degrees the day the men were discovered, and would have been much, much colder at higher altitudes.
The plane then flew from New York to Salt Lake City, Utah, around 7:30 a.m., and made a return flight just before 7 p.m. It's final flight of the day took the plane from New York to Florida, where the bodies of the men were found near the landing gear.
The Transportation Security Administration is investigating the deaths with the help of local law enforcement and the Federal Aviation Administration.
“This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred,” JetBlue said in a statement.
Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board told CNN that it would not investigate the incident because it did not involve the operation of the plane or the actions of the flight staff.
Unfortunately, this is far from the only incident of stowaways dying in a landing gear compartment.
Two weeks ago, a body was found inside the compartment of a United Airlines flight between Chicago and Maui. The FAA says that stowaways likely overestimate how much room will be available to them inside a wheel bay once the landing gear are retracted. Stowaways who aren't crushed by the landing gear would have to survive on minimal oxygen and avoid freezing to death once the jet reaches cruising altitude.
“The most likely country for wheel-well stowaways used to be Cuba, often due to immigration or family reunification efforts,” former Department of Transportation Inspector General Mary Schiavo told CNN during a News Central appearance on Tuesday. “But the dangers are profound. Survivors may suffer long-term physical damage from the noise, lack of oxygen, or freezing temperatures.”
According to an FAA report from 2011, approximately 80 percent of stowaways who try to hide in wheel bays or other external jet compartments die.
