Man found dead inside airplane engine at Salt Lake City international airport
A man was found dead inside an airplane engine on Monday night at Salt Lake City international airport after police say he breached an emergency exit door, walked onto the tarmac and climbed inside the jet’s engine.
Officers found 30-year-old Kyler Efinger, a Park City resident, unconscious inside an engine mounted to the wing of a commercial aircraft loaded with passengers, the Salt Lake City police department (SLCPD) announced on Tuesday. The plane had been sitting on a de-icing pad, the engine was rotating at the time, but the cause of Efinger’s death remains unclear.
The manager of a store inside the airport reported a disturbance just before 10pm, telling dispatchers with the airport control center that he saw a man pass through the emergency exit.
Minutes later the SLCPD found “personal items” including shoes and clothing on one of the airport’s runways, police said in a statement that detailed the timeline of the incident. Less than 15 minutes after the first sighting of Efinger, police and airport staff pulled him from the engine intake cowling, which directs air flow to the engine fan section, and performed CPR, but Efinger had died at the scene.
Passengers were removed from the plane, which was en route from Salt Lake City to San Francisco, but overall airport operations were not affected, police said. The initial investigation indicates the man accessed the airport’s ramp area from the emergency exit and climbed inside the nearby engine.
An airport spokesperson told the Guardian that they will not be releasing anymore information since the investigation is ongoing.