TRAVEL NEWS
Florida authorities have identified the remains of two people found inside the landing gear of a JetBlue commercial airplane in January as teenagers from the Dominican Republic.
The Broward County Sheriff’s Office said Monday that it identified 18-year-old Jeik Lusi and 16-year-old Elvis Castillo following “extensive DNA testing.”
The office said that both teens were from the Dominican Republic in an email on Tuesday to the Palm Beach Post − a part of the USA TODAY Network.
The statement did not provide details on how the victims gained access to the landing gear or the cause of death.
The aircraft had landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after taking off from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Jan. 6.
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Once the plane arrived, the bodies were found during a routine post-flight maintenance inspection of the aircraft, JetBlue said in a statement provided to multiple outlets following the discovery.
“This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred,” the statement said.
USA TODAY reached out to the airline Monday and did not receive an immediate response.
Landing gear compartments commonly used by stowaways
While it is unclear whether the teenagers were attempting to stow away on the flight, it’s not uncommon for people to use wheel wells, nose wells and other unpressurized areas to sneak onto aircraft, according to reporting by Reuters.
Stowaways in the unpressurized wheel houses and cargo holds of planes have to contend with freezing conditions, with temperatures that can reach between minus 58 degrees and minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit, Reuters reported. A lack of oxygen and the risk of being crushed by the plane’s wheels also make the practice often a deadly one.
But while the fatality rate for most wheel well stowaways is high, some people have survived the ordeal.
A person was found alive in the undercarriage bay of an Algerian carrier’s aircraft in Paris last year. In January 2022, a man was found alive in the nose wheel of a cargo plane arriving from South Africa to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, and a man managed to ride in the landing gear compartment of an American Airlines flight from Guatemala to Miami in 2021 before being taken to the hospital upon arrival in the U.S.
In 2014, a 15-year-old boy reportedly was able to stow away in a plane’s wheel well and survive a five and a half-hour Hawaiian Airlines flight from San Jose to Maui.
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This story and its headlines have been updated to reflect new information
Contributing: Cheryl McCloud − USA TODAY Network-Florida; Reuters
