2 bodies are found in the landing gear of JetBlue plane at Florida airport

News

2 bodies are found in the landing gear of JetBlue plane at Florida airport

2025-01-08 05:08 Last Updated At：05:10

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Two bodies were found in the landing gear compartment of a JetBlue aircraft at a South Florida airport, the latest security breach involving the nation's aviation system, authorities said.

The bodies were discovered in the wheel well area during a routine post-flight inspection on Monday night at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, the airline said in a statement to The Associated Press.

The aircraft had arrived in Fort Lauderdale shortly after 11 p.m. from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

"At this time, the identities of the individuals and the circumstances surrounding how they accessed the aircraft remain under investigation," JetBlue's statement said.

“This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred,” the airline added.

Paramedics declared both people dead at the scene, the Broward County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday. The agency's homicide and crime scene units are investigating, it said.

Both are believed to be men, said Carey Codd, a spokesman for the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, told the AP.

“Beyond that, their identities at this point are unknown, and that is some of the information that Broward sheriff's office detectives are trying to sort out at this point,” Codd said.

“Detectives will investigate and research all aspects of this particular incident, trying to figure out where the flight originated from, where else it had been, the circumstances under which the individuals got onto the plane," Codd added.

Though its most recent flight was from New York to Fort Lauderdale, the jet had been in both Kingston, Jamaica, and Salt Lake City, Utah, earlier on Monday, according to the flight tracking service FlightAware.com. Authorities haven’t said where they think the people got into the wheel well.

In Jamaica, the plane’s recent stop in the Caribbean nation gave rise to speculation that the people could be Jamaican, a government official said on social media.

However, “our information to date is that this matter still remains unclear and there is no immediate basis on which to conclude that they are Jamaicans,” Kamina Smith, minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade of Jamaica, said in a post on the social platform X.

“We therefore remain in contact with the relevant authorities and will update the public as soon as greater clarity and accuracy has been brought to bear on this tragic matter,” she said.

Autopsies are planned for both bodies to determine how they died, Codd said.

The Transportation Security Administration is working closely with the airline, the airport, local law enforcement agencies and the Federal Aviation Administration, a TSA spokesperson said Tuesday.

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

The fact that people were able to reach the wheel well of a commercial jetliner is the latest incident raising concerns about security within the nation’s aviation system.

“What you have to look at is what gaps were exploited and what layers of security didn’t work to allow something like this to happen,” said Jeff Price, professor of aviation at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

“It speaks to the ability to access an aircraft possibly without going through any of the procedures that normal passengers would go through,” he said.

It's the second time over the past month that a body has been found in the wheel well of an airplane. In late December, a body was found in the wheel well of a United Airlines plane after it landed in Maui from Chicago.

The airline industry in recent months has also been dealing with unticketed passengers found in cabins.

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. She had somehow bypassed security to board the flight, authorities said.

Then 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 said at the time.

Martin reported from Atlanta. Walker reported from New York. Associated Press writer Dave Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut.

Thousands flee as wildfires burn out of control in and around Los Angeles and homes are destroyed

2025-01-08 21:27 Last Updated At：21:31

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Wildfires tore across the Los Angeles area with devastating force Wednesday after setting off a desperate escape from burning homes through flames, ferocious winds and towering clouds of smoke.

The flames from a fire that broke out Tuesday evening near a nature preserve in the inland foothills northeast of LA spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot. The residents — one as old as 102 — waited there in their bedclothes as the night sky glowed red from flames and embers fell around them until ambulances, buses and even construction vans arrived to take them to safety.

Another blaze that started hours earlier ripped through the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood, a hillside area along the coast dotted with celebrity residences and memorialized by the Beach Boys in their 1960s hit “Surfin' USA.” In the frantic haste to get to safety, roadways became impassable when scores of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, some toting suitcases.

Sheriece Wallace was unaware there was a fire burning around her in that area until her sister called at the moment a helicopter made a water drop over her house.

“I was like, ‘it’s raining,’” Wallace said. “She’s like, ‘No, it’s not raining. Your neighborhood is on fire. You need to get out.’”

“As soon as I opened my door, it was like right there,” she said. “The first thing I did was looked at the trees to see where the wind was blowing. Because it hit me. It blew me back.” She was able to leave.

The traffic jam on Palisades Drive prevented emergency vehicles from getting through and a bulldozer was brought in to push the abandoned cars to the side and create a path. Video along the Pacific Coast Highway showed widespread destruction of homes and businesses along the famed roadway.

Pacific Palisades resident Kelsey Trainor said the only road in and out of her neighborhood was blocked. Ash fell all around them while fires burned on both sides of the road.

“We looked across and the fire had jumped from one side of the road to the other side of the road,” Trainor said. “People were getting out of the cars with their dogs and babies and bags, they were crying and screaming."

The fires at higher elevations were preventing utility crews from getting water to refill tanks, the Los Angeles Department of Wind and Power said in a statement Tuesday night.

A third wildfire started around 10:30 p.m. and quickly prompted evacuations in Sylmar, a San Fernando Valley community that is the northernmost neighborhood in Los Angeles. The causes of all three fires were under investigation.

Flames were being pushed by Santa Ana winds topping 60 mph (97 kph) in some places Tuesday, increasing to 80 mph (129 kph) by early Wednesday, according to reports received by the National Weather Service. They could top 100 mph (160 kph) in mountains and foothills — including in areas that haven’t seen substantial rain in months.

Ongoing red flag warnings highlight extremely critical fire weather conditions due to a combination of strong wind gusts in some of the highest terrain Wednesday morning and exceptionally dry relative humidity levels, according to Peter Mullinax, a meteorologist with the weather service's office in College Park, Maryland.

“The winds are expected to continue throughout today and even into Thursday as well, providing very little in terms of any relief," he said.

The situation prompted the Los Angeles Fire Department to take the rare step of putting out a plea for off-duty firefighters to help. It was too windy for firefighting aircraft to fly, further hampering the fight. A high wind warning was in effect for the region through 6 p.m., the weather service said.

“This will likely be the most destructive windstorm seen (since a) 2011 windstorm that did extensive damage to Pasadena and nearby foothills of the San Gabriel Valley,” the weather service said in a red flag warning early Wednesday.

Gov. Gavin Newsom posted on X early Wednesday that California had deployed more than 1,400 firefighting personnel to combat the blazes. “Emergency officials, firefighters, and first responders are all hands on deck through the night to do everything possible to protect lives,” Newsom said.

The erratic weather caused President Joe Biden to cancel plans to travel to inland Riverside County, where he was to announce the establishment of two new national monuments in the state. He remained in Los Angeles, where smoke was visible from his hotel, and was briefed on the wildfires. The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved a grant to help reimburse California for the firefighting cost.

Officials didn't give an estimate of structures damaged or destroyed in the Pacific Palisades wildfire, but they said about 30,000 residents were under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures were under threat. Newsom visited the scene and said many homes had burned. He declared a state of emergency.

The fire burned down Temescal Canyon, a popular hiking area surrounded by dense neighborhoods of multimillion-dollar homes. Flames jumped famous Sunset Boulevard and burned parts of the Palisades Charter High School, which has been featured in many Hollywood productions including the 1976 horror movie “Carrie,” the 2003 remake of “Freaky Friday” and the TV series “Teen Wolf.”

By evening the flames had spread into neighboring Malibu and several people there were being treated for burn injuries and a firefighter had a serious head injury and was taken to a hospital, according to Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Erik Scott.

By early Wednesday, the Eaton fire, which started around 6:30 p.m. the day before, had quickly burned 1.6 square miles (4 square kilometers), according to fire officials. The Hurst fire jumped to 500 acres (202 hectares) and the Palisades fire, which started around around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday and sent up a dramatic plume of smoke visible across Los Angeles, had destroyed 4.5 square miles (11.6 square kilometers) according to Angeles National Forest. The fires were at 0% containment as of early Wednesday.

As of Wednesday morning, more than 200,000 people were without power in Los Angeles County, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us, due to the strong winds.

Recent dry winds, including the notorious Santa Anas, have contributed to warmer-than-average temperatures in Southern California, where there’s been very little rain so far this season. Southern California hasn’t seen more than 0.1 inches (0.25 centimeters) of rain since early May.

The neighborhood, which borders Malibu about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of downtown LA, includes hillside streets of tightly packed homes along winding roads nestled against the Santa Monica Mountains and stretches down to beaches along the Pacific Ocean.

Long-time Palisades resident Will Adams said he immediately went to pick his two kids up from St. Matthews Parish School when he heard the fire was nearby. Meanwhile, he said embers flew into his wife's car as she tried to evacuate.

“She vacated her car and left it running,” Adams said. She and many other residents walked down toward the ocean until it was safe.

Adams said he had never witnessed anything like this in the 56 years he’s lived there. He watched as the sky turned brown and then black as homes started burning. He could hear loud popping and bangs “like small explosions,” which he said he believes were the transformers exploding.

“It is crazy, it’s everywhere, in all the nooks and crannies of the Palisades. One home’s safe, the other one’s up in flames,” Adams said.

Actor James Woods posted footage of flames burning through bushes and past palm trees on a hill near his home. The towering orange flames billowed among the landscaped yards between the homes.

Film studios canceled two movie premieres due to the fire and windy weather, and the Los Angeles Unified School District said it temporarily relocated students from three campuses in the Pacific Palisades area.

Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press writers Janie Har in San Francisco, Hallie Golden in Seattle, video journalist Eugene Garcia in Los Angeles, Ethan Swope in Pasadena, Brian Melley in London, Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, and Sarah Brumfield in Cockeysville, Maryland, contributed to this report.