On Friday night, a Frontier Airlines flight hit somebody crossing the runway as it was on its way to take off from Denver.
The plane’s engine caught fire. Fire trucks responded to the scene. Passengers were evacuated from the aircraft. I’ve linked to air traffic control audio, video of the evacuation from both inside and outside the aircraft, and even surveillance footage of the plane impacting the person who had trespassed onto the runway (though I did not embed that video).
The man who was horrifically mangled by a jet engine after stepping in front of a Frontier Airlines plane at Denver International Airport on Friday died by suicide, authorities revealed Tuesday.
Michael Mott, 41, was seeking to end his life when he calmly walked across the… pic.twitter.com/w1JGAFA7kW
— Alec Nolan (@AlecOnFOX7) May 12, 2026
We now know that the man that was ingested committed suicide. We also know that he “had 20 previous arrests, including for attempted murder” and that the man’s “most recent arrest was just one month before he trespassed at the airport.”
In 2005, Mott was arrested for attempted murder with a gun. He later pleaded down to second-degree assault and was sentenced to just 6 years in prison.
He was also charged with felony assault using a weapon during his time in prison.
When he got out of prison, he continued to commit crimes, including felony assault on a peace officer and domestic violence, along with other crime
He scaled an 8-foot airport perimeter fence topped with barbed wire, entered a remote airfield area, and reached the active runway within about two minutes. The Frontier Airlines pilot would not have seen him in the dark, at night, as the aircraft began its takeoff roll in the distance.
Selfish. Could’ve killed everyone on the plane. If you’ve decided to go, please go alone. Sheesh.
Thanks, Frontier!
The family should sue the City of Denver and Frontier. They should settle for 3 Airbus A321’s from Frontier and $80 million from the city. All the city has to do is tax the rich to pay.
A sad state of affairs. He achieved his objective at the price of others paying the mental and physical toll. That’s what suicide is about, punishment for the living for the cowards only to escape it.
Send the bill to the judges who turned him loose.
Ding, dong the …
Good riddance!
Hmmm….creative
Couldn’t he have found a bridge to jump from or a wood chipper to jump into? Selfish to the end.
Really makes you hope for the Futurama su!c!de booths. Sadly, I suspect that if we made it easy to achieve his goal, people like him would still do these things. I can’t imagine what is going on in the head of women I have dated. So, I certainly can’t fathom what is going on in the head of these folks.[I’ll make the joke for you. Draw the Venn diagram and maybe it looks like a doughnut, not eye glasses.]
1990 +++
@Denver Refugee — *sends invoice* … *gets ignored* … umm, what do we do now?
@This comes to mind — Best we can do is… death by snu snu (@L737?)
No surprise here. Our criminal justice system apparently thinks keeping the public safe isn’t part of their job. This guy wanted to take out a plane full of people with himself. Luckily for society he was only successful in the latter.
Selfish to the end like a lot of criminals. Fortunately no one else was killed.
@George Romey — If you think mental health is such an issue (it is), then lets properly fund healthcare in this country. (Oh, you actually weren’t serious about solving anything? Just more performative brutality against whomever you subjectively deem a criminal? Yeah…)
@This comes to mind – Absolutely correct.
Man. That’s one sick puppy. But as sick as most the ppl on the comments.