A man was killed Tuesday at Italy's third-busiest airport after being sucked into a jet engine on the runway, airport officials confirmed. The victim was not a passenger or an airport employee, according to an official for Sacbo, the company that manages Milan Bergamo Airport, tells the New York Times. Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper reports that an individual ran onto the tarmac as a plane was preparing to depart, per CNN, which indicates the man had come from "outside the airport." The incident led airport authorities to suspend flight operations at 10:20am local time. Flights resumed around noon. Data from FlightAware indicated that 19 flights were canceled and several others delayed as a result.
Incidents like this are highly unusual given the strict security measures typically in place on airport tarmacs, though not unprecedented. In May of last year, an airport employee at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport died after entering a running jet engine in what was labeled a suicide. Months earlier, a man who breached an emergency exit at Salt Lake City International Airport also died after climbing into a jet engine, per the Times. An investigation is now underway to determine how the man breached the Milan airport's perimeter, per CNN.