A person died on Wednesday after they “ended up” inside a running plane engine at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, officials said, although the circumstances of the person’s death remained unclear.
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, the flag carrier of the Netherlands, said in a statement that the episode involved its Flight KL1341, which had been scheduled to take off for Billund, Denmark.
“We are currently taking care of the passengers and employees who witnessed the incident at Schiphol,” the airline said.
It was unclear whether the person who died, whose name had not been made public, entered the plane’s engine or whether they were pulled into it. KLM did not say whether the person who died was an airline employee or airport worker.
Schiphol Airport said in a message posted in Dutch on social media that “there was a horrible incident where a person ended up in an airplane engine.”
“Our thoughts go out to the relatives, and we are caring for the passengers and colleagues who saw this,” the airport said.
The passengers onboard disembarked after the episode, the Dutch military police said on social media, adding that they were investigating.
Images that circulated on social media showed fire trucks and other emergency vehicles next to the plane on the tarmac.
The plane was an Embraer ERJ-190, a twin-engine jet, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks air travel. The jet carries up to 100 people, and is known as the “Cityhopper,” because it is used for short flights within Europe, according to the airline.
Fatal episodes like the one on Wednesday are rare on airport tarmacs, which have strict security measures in place.
In January, a man died after climbing into a plane engine at Salt Lake City International Airport. The police said that the man reached the plane by passing through an emergency exit door at the airport. He died at the airport after lifesaving efforts failed, the police said.
Claire Moses contributed reporting.
