Apparent suicide by aircraft at DEN
 

It's hard to imagine someone deciding to walk into an airplane engine during takeoff. There's a sad story behind it that we will never know.

https://abc7.com/post/frontier-airli...tion/19068264/

Goodness. I saw how there was an engine fire. At least this person probably did not suffer, but I can only imagine what this has been like for first responders and the mechanics who have to deal with the aftermath. Maybe the first responders have experience with such horrors, but probably not the mechanics.

Seems a bit premature to suggest this a suicide.

Fair point. Could be suicide, but there are other plausible explanations.

Out of respect for the family and loved ones I would never have titled this as a suicide. I have seen no news reports reporting this as a suicide and one should refrain to coming to their own conclusions. It’s quite possible this person was lost, disoriented, confused or under the influence. In my lifetime I have personally seen several people end up on or near active runways and taxiways that were not suicidal.

Point taken. Every other case I can recall of jet engine vs. human was accidental. Still, it's hard to imagine how anyone could have been unable to avoid an approaching aircraft engine, especially a person intent enough and agile enough to scale or breach the perimeter fence Suicide by train is distressingly common. As is walking onto a busy freeway.

Please take the word "apparent" in the title to mean that in my opinion it's highly likely, not certain.

under the influence of something? Many reports of drivers under influence driving wrong way on highways and don’t think they were suicidal.

Reports are that this person scaled the fence, so it definitely seems like the person intentionally was on/around the runway.

Possible. There may be no way to find out whether or what drugs were present. Scaling the fence and running (as reported) rule out heavy alcohol intoxication. There was intent to do something. If the pilot reports that the person ran onto the runway and stood in the path of the jet, that would seal it for me. If the pilot reports the person not stopping, that would reverse my opinion. On this question we should have an answer soon.

Six to eight feet high fencing the perimeter, totaling 36 miles, with razor wire on top - unlikely this was an accident?
Menko in STL

Our household's first thought was attempting to be a stowaway.

As usual in the videos you can see people using the evacuation slide with bags. Every evac this always happens. I know people don’t want to go without their stuff but it causes so many problems for evacuations. They really need to stress this more in safety videos not to take bags during an evac. There is going to be a day where people get stuck on an aircraft and not make it out due to people trying to take their bags with them.

I was going to say the same thing.

People who bring their bags with them during an evacuation need to be charged criminally.

Here is the video of the person walking and getting hit. It looks like they had a shuffling gait or limp, but to jump the fence it seems they would need to be quite athletic

I find it hard to believe that it was a suicide. There are plenty of places in the metro Denver area where it is much easier to simply throw oneself in front of a train or a car, rather than attempt to penetrate the airport perimeter and position oneself exactly on an active runway at the same time a jet is taking off. It almost certainly was a trespassing incident gone wrong, where the individual was struck before he got where he intended to go.

In the same vein, there are plenty of people every year who die tragically when hit by trains around the world. Are they all suicides? Of course not. Some are, but most are just people who make bad decisions and wind up in the wrong place at the wrong time, in front of a fast moving vehicle.