FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Many questions remain Wednesday, two days after two men were found dead inside the wheel well of a JetBlue plane at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
“You could be crushed by the landing gear coming up, you could fall out when the gear door is opened again,” aviation attorney Willard Shepard told Local 10 News.
A spokesperson for JetBlue confirmed in a statement that the two men were discovered lifeless inside the aircraft’s landing gear compartment during a routine post-flight inspection Monday night.
According to Flight Radar 24, the plane flew into FLL from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York after stopping in Salt Lake City; Kingston, Jamaica; and Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic the day before.
Detectives have not yet released the identities of the victims, but a JetBlue spokesperson confirmed they were not airline staff.
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The Jamaican minister of foreign affairs also said there’s no basis to believe the two men were from Jamaica.
Aviation service company Feam Aero gave Local 10 an inside look at a similar wheel well on Tuesday.
“First of all, this should have never of happened,” Shepard said. “The priority is security always at the airport -- property and clearly security here has been breached.”
Shepard said the odds of surviving a flight in the landing gear area are slim. It’s also a security risk.
“Think of the danger that could exist if a person did have bad intentions and they’re able to execute this,” Shepard said.
Local 10 News reporter Michaila Hightower also spoke to a retired American Airlines pilot Captain Wayne Ziskal, who had a similar experience over 30 years ago.
Ziskal recalled a similar incident when a stowaway was found walking around the ramp in Orlando after a flight from Santo Domingo back in 1994.
“The end result was that I got a call that there was a stowaway walking around the ramp in Orlando at night and he apparently came from my airplane,” he said.
Ziskal also emphasized the risks involved, pointing out that breaches like these not only endanger passengers but also pose a significant security threat.
“The issue for me is not that there’s a possibility of a stowaway in there, the issue is the security threat that potentially somebody wants to do harm to the airplane could put something else in there that might not be caught,” Ziskal added.
“How many people can get through before the airport wakes up?” or, “Is this a wake-up call that all security in airports is not working?” asked a South Florida resident.
When asked about the potential risks of such breaches, including the possibility of a bomb being planted inside the aircraft, Ziskal said, “Obviously, this is an issue where some of these folks had to have access at the airport, have access to the ramp, not be challenged.”
Monday night’s incident is the latest in a series of similar incidents around the country, including one in which another person was found dead in the wheel well of a United Airlines plane that landed in Maui.
