Milan Bergamo Airport suspended operations for almost two hours on Tuesday after a man was sucked into a jet engine on a runway.

An airport spokesman said the man died from the horrifying incident.

Officials noted the man was neither a passenger nor an airport employee.

It’s unclear how the man accessed the runway.

“SACBO announces that flight operations at Milan Bergamo Airport were suspended from 10:20 am to 12:00 pm due to a problem that occurred on the taxiway. The causes of the problem are currently being investigated by the authorities. Air traffic resumed at 12:00 pm,” the airport said on X.

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It’s believed the man ran onto the tarmac and into the path of an Airbus A319 Volotea aircraft bound to Asturias, Spain, while preparing for takeoff.

Footage from the airport below:

More info from The New York Times:

Nineteen flights at Milan Bergamo Airport were canceled and several were delayed, according to FlightAware, a company that tracks flight information. The airport is the third busiest in Italy after Fiumicino Airport in Rome and Milan’s Malpensa Airport.

Airport tarmacs usually have strict security protocols, and fatal incidents on them are rare.

Last year, in May, an airport employee died after climbing into a running jet engine at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, in what the Dutch military police called a suicide. A few months before that, a man who had passed through an emergency exit door died after climbing into a jet engine at Salt Lake City International Airport.

“According to media reports, a person was sucked into the engine of an aircraft taxiing for takeoff at Milan Bergamo Airport. The accident occurred at 10:38 local time. It is currently unclear why the person was on the taxiway,” Flightradar24 stated.

CBS News noted:

The aircraft involved was an Airbus A319 operated by low-cost airline Volotea, for a flight from Bergamo to Asturias, in northern Spain. The incident reportedly occurred shortly after the aircraft completed boarding and was taxiing away from the terminal.

According to ANSA, the victim is believed to have entered the runway with the intent of taking his own life. The man, who was neither a passenger nor an airport employee, eluded security staff and ran toward the aircraft when it was already in motion.

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