Man dies after breaching airport security door, climbing into Delta plane’s engine

A man who breached security at Salt Lake City International Airport on New Year’s Day was found dead inside the engine of a Delta plane awaiting takeoff with 100 people onboard.

The alarm over the unidentified 30-year-old man was raised when the manager of an airport store reported an unspecified disturbance just before 10 p.m., police said.

Before airport police could reach him, the same man then somehow got through an emergency exit door and ran out onto the airfield, Salt Lake City police said.

At 10:10 p.m. — just over 15 minutes after he got through security — he was found unconscious inside one of the engines on a Delta Airbus A220-100 being de-iced before flying to San Francisco, officials also said.

He had run up to the plane and “crawled into an aircraft engine that was not running,” the airport said.

First responders pulled him out of the engine intake cowling, which directs air to the engine fan section, and attempted life-saving measures. However, he was pronounced dead at the scene.