Disturbing video captured the final moments of a Utah man who was found dead inside the engine of a Delta plane – showing him breaching an emergency exit door and making his way to the tarmac.
Kyler Efinger, 30, of Park City, died on New Year’s Day after climbing into the turbine of the aircraft, which was awaiting takeoff at Salt Lake City International Airport with 100 people onboard.
Newly released footage that Fox 13 Now obtained from the Salt Lake City Department of Airports shows Efinger running to a locked door at the gate and trying to open it.
He has a brief interaction with a person who appears to be an airport employee before dashing off to another door and using his shoe to strike a window.
He then takes off again and kicks another door open to an emergency exit before running down the stairwell, video from another camera shows.
The next video obtained by the outlet was captured by a thermal imaging camera, showing the plane slowly taxiing as Efinger runs toward it before the footage cuts off.
Other footage cited by Fox 13 Now shows him being dropped off at the airport, going through security, walking through the terminal and running away from the gate as he tosses his belongings.
Efinger’s family believes the incident stemmed from a mental health crisis while he was about to fly to Denver to see his sick grandfather.
“He got held up in security, missed his flight, and those phone calls, I just knew it was coming on. They call it the manic phase. Those just don’t end well for him,” his dad, Judd Efinger, told Fox 13 earlier.
“Obviously, this one, the worst ever,” he added.
Efinger was found “partially inside a wing-mounted engine” of the plane after the manager of an airport store reported a disturbance on the secured side of the terminal just before 10 p.m. that night.
The Airbus A220-100 was being de-iced before flying to San Francisco, officials also. Its engines were rotating at the time Efinger was found, despite the airport initially reporting they were off.
Salt Lake City police and airport workers found personal items, including shoes and clothing, discarded on one of the runways.
First responders pulled him out of the engine intake cowling, which directs air to the engine fan section, and tried life-saving measures including administering naloxone, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The medical examiner’s office has yet to determine the exact cause and manner of his death.
Police along with the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Transportation Security Administration are still investigating the security violation and death.