*Rest in Peace.* Further information will be posted here as FAA releases during the investigation.

man, that pilot sounded so joyful prior to landing, you can hear how much he enjoys this. His tone did change after landing and spotting the person, and by then he probably didn't know they hit him. I hope this doesn't affect them in the future.

Wow... that poor flight crew. We all know it isn’t their fault, but that just because it isn’t their fault doesn’t mean they won’t suffer guilt and other issues related to that kind of traumatic incident.

The flight crew and Southwest did nothing to deserve this fatality on their record.

You can clearly feel that the pilot was fully aware of what happened by the change in his voice tone.

He sounded so defeated when he said “He’s behind us now.”

OMG! The poor pilot sounded so happy on approach.

I feel bad for that pilot, having to live with taking someone’s life unintentionally must be soul crushing. I just wish people would stop killing themselves and getting other people indirectly involved (Trains, trucks, airplanes, cops etc)

Years ago, while working at Toronto (YYZ) we received a weird call from the tower at 5 am. Two people were walking down the middle of the active runway, so we raced out and grabbed them. They were two skinheads that had gotten stoned and decided that they wanted to look at airplanes, so they climbed over the fences. They were surprisingly mellow, which was lucky, as it was the last hour of our last night shift, and we were exhausted. One of them turned out to be wanted for murder in Montreal, where he’d kicked a guy to death. Weird day. Great channnel!

Rideshare driver here: Just started driving again this week. Only doing airport rides since I live right there and love planes. I face my car towards 17R while I wait for rides and will usually work on some school. Can’t see whole runway but you can see most of the approach and usually the smoke ride up after tires touchdown. I remember seeing this plane land and then thought I heard someone slam a car door. Saw the go around and thought that was off since it’s so slow. Didn’t think anything of it. Picked up a person from that flight and she said they hit something but I didn’t believe her honestly. Thought maybe there was just a crosswind and some turbulence. I learned after I dropped her off what happened. Victor, you are so fast with these - seriously impressed. RIP to the guy. These are strange times.

Yikes that must have been a terrible scene to drive up to for those first responders. Awful.

As a railway dispatcher/signaller (like ATC for trains) this is sadly a very common occurance. I recognise the change in the pilot's voice after the incident. Strange to hear it in an aviation clip.

The pilot knew, you could tell, there was a slight dread. He wasn't expecting the person to have survived. Tough situation to be in.

Had that happen to me a few times while driving trains, i hope they get all the support they need. Sounds like they didn't feel it, it's for the best.

Looks like a trespasser strike, you get a lot of those in the railroads, but almost unheard of in aviation.

I am always impressed by the professionalism of the communications by pilots and ATC during emergencies.

I was nearly right there when it happened, I’m a fuel operator at KAUS and I watched the flight come in while I was at the fuel farm topping off my truck, but I didn’t see the man. Suddenly after the plane landed I saw cops and Austin fire and rescue zoom by at like 60mph and arrive out on the runway and I was filled with confusion until I finally heard what happened, I was devastated that night.

My condolences to the person's family. I hope the pilots are OK, having to experience something like that.

I am ver surprised that they even saw him to begin with. Taxi to gate and get out and to only realize you hit something.

Locomotive engineers deal with this alot. There's nothing you can do to avoid hitting someone when they're in the wrong place while you're at the controls of that many tons.

That is a SERIOUS impact - the person obviously wanted to die as they were standing in front of the engines - hoping to get ingested no doubt.

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time there has been an apparent suicide of this sort. When I worked in Phoenix years ago, a drunk "hitchhiker" was killed by an Alaska Airlines 727. (NTSB Accident Number LAX90LA116).

Imagine looking out the window to see the engine reverse when all of the sudden... good god.

I feel so sorry for the flight crew and witnesses - and of course the person that got hit.

"I have a number for you to write down when you're ready." This is a rare instance when a pilot doesn't have to worry that he is in big trouble over something he did wrong.

I don't know who this person was, but my condolences to their family. And I hope that the crew is being watched carefully on the psychological front. They must feel terrible - especially the Pilot!

Similar incident La Times report May 12, 1990 Alaska Airlines 727 rolling at 100 mph hit a man on takeoff at the Phoenix airport

In all fairness a active runway kinda comes out of nowhere..

Looks like he tried to jump inside the engine, instead he just got hit by the cowling

Hitting a person is not different than hitting a deer, you do not have time to react, they were touching down their job was to stay on the center line of the runway and under control. Many people swerve to miss deer or other animals while driving and leave the roadway, once you do that your chances of death go up ten fold or more. Why this person (an adult remember) was on the runway doesn't matter, they choose to endanger the lives of potentially hundreds of lives thankfully there was only one fatality, the crew did a great job handling the situation..

As a traffic homicide investigator I had to investigate a number of railroad fatal incidents. The railroad companies have protocol for helping the train crew cope with the trauma they will feel. I hope the airline did the same for that flight crew.

Very sad. But I love how the DL819 lady articulates.

You got this out with the quickness! Much appreciated!!

That was by far the most informative video I’ve seen posted about this incident.

My wife was a SWA Attendant (Years Ago) and we once took pictures of her sitting in the leading edge of the intake naselle of her 737 she had been working. She's only 5' 4" and the engine intake on a 737 is close enough to the ground that she got into the intake like she would getting up on a stool. An epic picture that hangs in her office next to her SWA certs and memorbilia. Looks like the runway man caught the edge of the nacelle with his head and or shoulders and his body was slammed against the side of the engine housing as he spun off. My theory is he was running toward the landing aircraft hopeing to jump into the left (port) engine intake and almost made it! Hard to judge the intersecting speed of a 200 mph airplane, don't ya know? I seriously doubt and passengers ever knew, or saw what happened and the plane is moving pretty fast on landing (somewhere in the 150 to 200mph range) and there are no forward facing windows for the passengers to see ahead. If anything, it was just a flash and maybe a thump like the tires touching down on the runway. I'd say it was suicide by jet engine! Yech! (Maybe an Aloha Snackbar Attempt??) A stupid way to die. I'ts not like you can't hear a jet coming. Lot of wind noise in front of them. And the engines whistling at near idle on approach. I use to work next to the runways of a major airport. They never snuck up on us. Anyway, my 2 cents!

you can tell by the damage pattern on the engine housing that the impact was on the edge of the intake and that it was very, very hard jesus

I am recently retired from work as an adjuster for a major insurance company. Back in the late 1980’s we handled a wrongful death claim made by the surviving mother of a young man who ran out onto a freeway (from bushes in the median) directly in front of one of our insureds. The guy was high on drugs and was totally naked. When our insured (middle aged lady) hit the man she couldn’t see anything due to the body landing on her windshield. She was traumatized beyond belief. And yes, the mother of the deceased man actually sued HER! The jury came back after about 15 minutes and asked the judge if they could award damages to our insured.

Kudos to VASAviation for getting a video of an incident Animated in less than a day.

My great grandfather died on a runway. The only difference was he was at a remote airport skydiving and he primary shoot failed and reserve didn’t open fast enough. My mother will never let any of us go skydiving because of it.

No good day has ever ended with the words, "We have a number for you to copy down..."

Forget trying to avoid him and risking a whole plane of people for one clown

Well so many questions!

Thank you for your work, in putting together this information.

I thought only train drivers can experienced that. Rest in peace buddy

My thoughts are with the crew. Difficult situation that involves them but they couldn't control. I hope they can fly again soon and get all the help they need.

I feel bad for everyone involved. I also feel bad for any passengers who watched as the full force of a 737 hit a man at 150mph. Sucks for the pilots who couldn’t do a damn thing about it, either. I hope they don’t hold guilt.

As sad as this is, Delta 819 has a great radio voice though

That could have been so much worse. Bad, but at least its only one fatality.

How do you get these and upload so quickly??

The pilot has to keep going straight once on the ground or the plane will likely skid out of control and risk the lives of all aboard. They didn't even see the guy early enough to get back into the air, so they could do absolutely nothing to avoid it. Furthermore, they didn't even know that the nacelle had hit the guy. For all we know, the man may have intentionally positioned himself in front of the oncoming nacelle. It's either intentional suicide, or impairment from drugs, and/or alcohol bringing on suicidal impulses, or just life threatening behavior. Many years ago a drunk driving the wrong way on a divided roadway ended up directly in front of me. I braked as hard as I could, and veered to my right, I'm in America. The drunk also veered, unfortunately, he veered to his left, and we hit head on. He was in a Volkswagen Beatle, I was in a heavy step van. I wasn't scratched. He was nearly killed. The worst part was that he had a female passenger who was also seriously hurt. Neither of them died, but I could not have done anything to avoid it. Had both of them been killed, I would have thought about it for a while, but ultimately, it was not my fault, I did everything I could have done, and the driver did multiple things wrong that caused the collision. I have deeper twinges of guilt about extremely minor things that I have actually done wrong, and I have no feelings of guilt over that incident.

I have so many (morbid) questions. Based on the text at the beginning of the video, I assume he wasn't ingested by the engine, likely only because the engine was at low power for landing. But other than the dented nacelle housing, how much damage was done to the engine? What kind of alarms did this set off in the cockpit?

I was under the assumption airports had ground radar that would detect activity such as vehicles and people on the airport grounds.

That guy wanted to die Also quite worrying that security is apparently not paying attention

As tough as this may be, if it was Harrison Ford, he'd already have the number to ATC.

as an ex train driver, I was in that position which caused a big trauma for myself for at least 6 months

Report by Aero Inside On May 9th 2020 the airport reported the man was not employed by the airport and hopped the perimeter fence of the airport. The perimeter fence is being checked by Transportation Security Administration. Airport Staff reported the man was a homeless person known to police. A large homeless camp is just outside Austin Airport, in the past there had been similiar encounters when homeless people ended up inside the airport perimeter.

Man you're quick, in a just reading about this last night.

That's tragic but totally not the pilots fault and I hope he recovers from such a horrible event

This was quick i just read the news story and came here to see if you had info and wow you did thanks

That's alot of damage from one person. I assume high speed impact on the housing rather than a partial ingestion into the turbine blades...

How could one man cause so much damage on such a huge engine? The engine looks like it struck a wooly mammoth. Seriously, that's insane.

Thoughts are with the flight crew, the tower, and the mechanics that will have to fix that damage.

What’s sticking out of the fan cowl / thrust reverser area? I assume the TR was open when he got hit and it closed.

I work as an airport operations specialist at another airport. It must be awful for the pilot and airport ops to see this fatal accident. I was gross out when I responded to a bird strike and had to pick up the pieces. Imagine of a person getting sucked into the engine and shredded into pieces...

I just finished watching the 9 or so month old video about a man on the runway, also a Southwest involved. And now this...

That crew is going to go through the same emotional issues as train crews do when they hit cars on tracks. I had a neighbor (BNSF engineer) who had hit several cars in his career with multiple fatalities. He said they have a program that they have to go through after each indident. He told me that it helps, but that you never really get over it whether it's one or many. Sad......

2:32 Flex Tape: that's a lot of damage.

In some press reports the EMTs said 'there were no attempts at medical treatment' and the police said he was 'obviously dead'. Don't have to spell out the condition of what they found :( Heart goes out to the flight crew.

How the hell did he get there in the first places? Airports are pretty secure with tall fencing.

SO NOW WHEN SOMEONE SAYS,HEY I GOT A PLANE TO CATCH,SHOULD I ASK ARE YOU SUICIDAL OR GOING ON A TRIP.

Sounds like a Trolley problem(Plane problem actually). If the pilot tried hard to avoid that guy, he may risk the whole plane.

The video preceding this on youtube for my pushed recommendations was a man trying to board a plane by smuggling through the luggage conveyer, losing more than his shoes in the process. Now this gave me chills

More to come but the Million Dollar question is - How does someone (non-authorized person) get onto secure airport property and then walk to an active runway without being noticed?

I cant even imagine this scenario. Hopefully everyone who needs it is getting the services they need for mental health and the answers come out as to how this was able to happen.

Boy, that's gotta mess you up forever, if you're the pilot in that situation. Rip to dude and all my best to the pilots

Wow, you got this one up quick.

Thanks for this channel. I just read about this in the news and wondered if this channel would have the audio. Sure enough, you were on the ball. Such a great channel. I wonder if this was a really unique suicide.

This is such a bizarre incident, I can't imagine what this pedestrian is either thinking or doing at the time of trespassing onto the runway... This is Austin's new airport which of course used to be a former USAFB ( Bergstrom AFB) and also used to be a former SAC base, so it would have a very high and secure fence, which would probably still be there if not even updated better... Lot's of questions are going to be asked in the many days ahead of this incident...

How is the damage on the side of the engine?

The amount of force that it takes to do that to the engine cowling...good lord...

The sad part about this is just listening to the pilots voice, he sounds, well, happy. He just sounds chipper and positive on the radio.

This is really sad and also that's a lot of damage on the engine. Surprising.

The man nearly survived!!! Apparently it was touch and go at one point.

Such joy of flying and landing... to such sorrow and terrible pit in the stomach. Sad.

Major respect to the pilot for trying to keep as calm as possible on radio after that happened.

You gotta remember how big those planes are and how fast they’re going when landing. It’s like walking onto the highway and getting hit by a fully loaded semi truck.

Places not to be randomly standing, a list: 1. A lava flow 2. Train tracks 3. An active runway 4. A highway 5. Nuclear reactor core

I live in Austin and drive around ABIA (the air port) all the time. I've seen holes under the fences around the air port. Also the fence has barbed wire. Not that hard to clime over it. Austin also has a big homeless problem and there's a good size camp of them near the air port.

was the guy wearing a red Starfleet uniform?

Wow! That plane hit him hard to cause that kind of damage.

If this is another case of an unauthorized person being in the AOA, I don't have a ounce of sympathy for that individual. We have fences and restrictions around active parts of the airport for very good reason, but people keep finding their way into places they shouldn't be.

During World War 2 my grandfather was at the controls of a bomber doing an engine test when one of the maintenance crew walked into the spinning propeller and was killed. A few weeks later he was standing on the flight line when another one walked right by him and passed through the spinning propeller arc without even being touched. Turns out that a group of Native American Indians believed it was some sort of spiritual test of bravery, fate, or something to walk through an idling engine's propeller without showing any fear. So doing something suicidal doesn't always mean you want to die! Base jumpers come to mind : ) 36 years service and 3 wars, the man was just full of stores.

Feel bad for the crew and the person's family. Thankfully it appears the person didn't get inside the inlet, that would've be very expensive for Southwest to have to also rebuild the powerplant in addition to repairing the inlet. I just don't understand why do people have to involve innocent people when they decide to do these types of things!

Feel for the guy. We get several similar on trains and railways in general in the UK.

Well, if you wanna go out in spectacular style, yet quick and painless, I guess that's one way to do it.

The pilots saw him but did not hear or feel anything, the man left an impression on the left engine though.

I was told by an airman back in high-school that they had a plane land and it hit a dog on the run way, nothing left bigger then your hand ✋. When did this happen ?

Great Job Victor, your channel is amazing. As for the crew, they did everything right, and I doubt they will lose too much sleep. They're trained pros who do there job and sometimes events happen that are just out of their control. The crews responsibility is to the 100 or so (or these days, 7) pax in the back of the jet.

Any atc from recent flyovers in NYC and others?

Anyone have a link to a video of it? I’d love to see what happens