Police are investigating the death of a Park City man who breached security at Salt Lake City International Airport late Monday and climbed inside a passenger plane’s engine cowling.

The 30-year-old man, identified Tuesday as Kyler Efinger, was found unconscious inside the cowling before he was pronounced dead, Salt Lake City police said. His cause of death has not been determined.
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At 10:06 p.m., officers and airport staff found personal items, including clothing and shoes, on one of the airport’s runways, police said.At 10:08 p.m., dispatchers relayed to officers that Efinger had been spotted underneath a commercial aircraft and had accessed the plane’s engine, police said. Officers immediately requested that air traffic controllers notify the plane’s pilot to shut down the aircraft’s engines.

Within the same minute, officers arrived to find Efinger partially inside the intake cowling of one of the aircraft’s wing-mounted engines. Police initially said the aircraft’s engines were not running, according to a preliminary investigation, but on Tuesday afternoon, police confirmed the aircraft’s engines were rotating when Efinger was found.

“The specific stage of engine operation remains under investigation,” police said in a news release.

The plane was loaded with passengers at the time but parked atop a de-icing pad, police said.

At about 10:09 p.m., officers removed the man from the cowling, secured the scene and began rendering aid to him while requesting emergency medical services. The man received CPR and a dose of naloxone, police said, but he died at the scene.

Salt Lake City police are working with the Utah medical examiner’s officer to determine Efinger’s cause and manner of death.

Passengers were taken off the plane where Efinger was found, but the “overall operation” of the airport was not affected, according to police.

Salt Lake City police, the FAA, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Transportation Security Administration continue to investigate the event.

Salt Lake Police spokesperson Brent Weisberg said authorities found the man unconscious in the engine intake cowling. “It's that silver band that protects the air blades," he said. "So, he was about halfway in the aircraft engine, but also his lower part of his body was still outside so he wasn't fully inside the engine.”

Is a door all that stands between passengers and the airfield? Airport communications director Nancy Volmer said no. There are access points between the airfield and the airport in case of emergency, but there are also additional security measures beyond the doors. But she declined to elaborate further until Salt Lake City police and federal authorities, including the Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board and the Transportation Security Administration, finish their investigations. “Some information is public. Other information is not,” Volmer said. “But I think it’s not clear to a lot of members of the media or the public on how that could happen.”

Police arrived to investigate the disturbance, and airport control informed officers at 9:56 p.m. that Efinger had gone through an emergency exit door. Officers searched the area and couldn’t find the man.

SLCPD spokesman Brent Weisberg said it’s not uncommon for passengers to accidentally lean against an emergency exit and trigger an alarm. Once officers realized that wasn’t what happened this time, the investigation began to “expand and evolve," he said.