Published 00.27
The 41-year-old got over the fence in 15 seconds.
Two minutes later he was standing on the runway as the aircraft sped along.
Now the police believe they have solved the mystery.
The images from the surveillance cameras captured the unsavory scenes.
Flight 4345 of Frontier Airlines was about to take off from the airport in Denver late Saturday night when a person suddenly found himself on the runway.
Was a mystery
The person was sucked into one of the Airbus A321 plane’s engines and probably died instantly.
A small fire broke out in the engine and caused panic on board as smoke entered the cabin.
The 224 passengers were evacuated from the plane on inflatable emergency slides.
The death drama was initially a mystery. It was not known who the person was and why he was on the runway when the plane was about to take off.
Now the police have identified the dead man as 41-year-old Michael Mott. He described by the New York Post as a “professional criminal” who, among other things, has been convicted of murder, burglary and assault.
Saw deer on camera
Denver Airport Director Phil Washington states at a press conference that the accident occurred at 11:19 p.m. on Saturday evening.
About nine minutes before that, a movement alarm went off outside the airport. An air traffic controller then looked at the camera and could see a group of deer just outside the fence.
– They didn’t see the intruder at first, says Washington according to the New York Post.
– The camera image alternated between the animals and the person. There are also some ditches in the area, so the person was also out of sight for a while.
It took about 15 seconds for the 41-year-old to get over the approximately two and a half meter high barbed wire fence.
Took two minutes
– The time between the person climbing over the fence and being hit by the plane was about two minutes. The location of the incident is approximately three kilometers from the terminal. Given the short period of time, we did not have time to intervene and prevent the person from reaching the runway, says Washington.
The radio traffic after the death was dramatic.
– We stay on the runway. We just hit someone, the pilot told the tower.
– We have an engine fire.
The eerie conversations
The communications from the staff in the tower bear witness to the chaos immediately afterwards.
– We have body parts on the runway. I assume the plane hit a person, says a person at the airport over the radio.
– There seem to be remains on the track.
The police suspect that Mott may have allowed himself to be hit by the plane on purpose. The surveillance images show him calmly standing still while flight 4345 speeds along the runway.
– We are currently looking for any notes, computers and the like, and trying to map where he was last located, says Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas at Tuesday’s press conference, according to the New York Post.
