Person dies after falling into engine of airliner departing from Amsterdam airport

A person died Wednesday after falling into the rotating turbine blades of a jetliner departing from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, officials said.

The death occurred on the tarmac outside the busy hub terminal, as a KLM flight was preparing to take off for Billund in Denmark.

“An incident occurred today at Schiphol in which a person found himself in a running aircraft engine,” Dutch airline KLM said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, the person died,” KLM said, without revealing the identity of the victim.

The airline did not say whether the victim was an airport employee, a passenger or someone else.

Dutch Border Police, responsible for security at the Netherlands’ largest airport, said the passengers had been removed from the plane and an investigation had been launched.

The plane involved is a short-haul Embraer jet, used by KLM’s Cityhopper service, which operates flights to other nearby destinations such as London, Dutch media said.

An image published on public broadcaster NOS showed the plane surrounded by fire trucks and ambulances next to the departure terminals.

Safety and security measures are strict at Schiphol and accidents are rare at the busy airport, which handled around 5.5 million passengers last month alone, according to airport figures.

Other deaths linked to passenger aircraft engines have occurred at various U.S. airports in recent months.

In January, a A 30-year-old man has died after climbing into a plane engine at Salt Lake City International Airport.

Last June, a 27-year-old airport worker died after being sucked into the engine of a jetliner in San Antonio, Texas.

An airline employee died in December 2022 after being sucked into an airplane engine after an American Eagle flight from Dallas landed at Montgomery Regional Airport in Alabama.