Two bodies found in plane's landing gear at Florida airport during routine inspection

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Two bodies were found in the landing gear compartment of a JetBlue aircraft at a South Florida airport, authorities said.

In a statement to news agency AP, the airline said that the bodies were discovered in the wheel well area on Monday night at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. They were found during a routine post-flight maintenance inspection after the aircraft had arrived shortly after 11 pm from John F Kennedy International Airport in New York, AP reported.

Paramedics declared both the individuals dead at the scene, the Broward County sheriff's office said on Tuesday. The agency's homicide and crime scene units are investigating, it further informed. The names of the two individuals have not been revealed.

"At this time, the identities of the individuals and the circumstances surrounding how they accessed the aircraft remain under investigation," JetBlue's statement said, adding, "This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred."

It appears there was "no involvement of the flight crew or operation of the airplane", the National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement on Tuesday morning. The agency was not investigating the case, it said.

This is the second such case over the past month. In late December, a body was found in the wheel well of a United Airlines plane after it landed in Maui from Chicago, AP reported.

In the recent months, the airline industry in the United States has also been dealing with unticketed passengers.

In November, a Russian national who did not have a ticket boarded a Paris-bound Delta Air Lines flight in New York and was arrested when the plane touched down in France. According to authorities, she had bypassed security to board the flight.

On Christmas Eve, a passenger without a ticket boarded a Delta Air Lines flight from Seattle to Honolulu. The passenger was discovered while the plane was taxiing for departure, Delta had stated.

2,300 flights cancelled as US faces harsh winter

More than 2,300 flights were cancelled and at least 9,100 more were delayed across the United States on Monday night, AP reported. The Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport reported that about 58 per cent of arrivals and 70 per cent of departures had been cancelled. The airport announced early on Tuesday that it had reopened all runways after closing them the previous evening so that airport crews could focus on snow removal and prevent refreezing on the airfield.

A record 8 inches of snow fell Sunday at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, leading to dozens of flight cancellations that lingered into Monday.

(With AP inputs)