JetBlue stowaways’ badly decomposed bodies raised possibility they were there for multiple flights: report

Airport staff said the bodies of the stowaways who rode to Florida in the landing gear compartment of a JetBlue airplane were badly decomposed when they were found.

The decomposed remains were found inside the compartment after the plane landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Monday, while an airline worker was inspecting the landing gear.

An unidentified individual said over a police radio during the incident that a gate technician in the landing gear area noticed two males who appear to be Signal 7, a police radio code used to describe a dead body, advised they are not moving in the landing gear area.

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.