A man has been found dead after climbing inside a plane’s engine at Salt Lake City Airport.
Kyler Efinger, 30 from Park City, breached an emergency exit door while on a Delta Airlines plane on Monday, police said.
He then walked onto the tarmac and climbed inside one of the jet’s engines.
The plane had been sitting on a de-icing pad and its turbines were rotating.
Efinger, who had a boarding pass to Denver, was pronounced dead at the scene.
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Salt Lake City Police said they found Efinger unconscious and that emergency services had pulled him out of the engine intake cowling, which directs air flow to the engine fan.
A store manager at Utah’s biggest airport told the Airport Control Centre that he saw a passenger pass through an emergency exit just before 10pm (5am GMT).
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Officers then found Efinger’s clothing, shoes and other personal items on one of the runways, and rushed to tell the pilot to shut off the aircraft’s engines.
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Paramedics performed CPR and administered naloxone – medication that can rapidly reverse opioid overdose and restore normal breathing – in a bid to resuscitate the man.
Efinger’s cause and manner of death is still being determined by police.
The flight, Delta 2348 from Salt Lake City to San Francisco, was cancelled after passengers safely deplaned, a spokesperson for Delta told NBC News.
They added: “As nothing is more important than the safety and security of our customers and people, Delta is fully cooperating with all aviation authority and law enforcement investigations.”
