
The Denver airport trespasser who was sucked into a jet engine and horrifically dismembered when he stepped in front of a Frontier Airlines plane was a career criminal who was previously arrested for attempted murder — and authorities believe he intended to kill himself.
Michael Mott, 41, was seeking to commit suicide when he calmly walked across the runway while the aircraft barreled toward him, according to video of the grisly scene and a representative for the Denver City and County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The cause of death was determined to be multiple blunt and sharp force injuries, Chief Medical Examiner Sterling McLaren said during a news conference Tuesday.
A suicide note has not been recovered, according to Denver Police Department Chief Ron Thomas. However, Mott had multiple previous problems with the law.
A spokesperson for the department later told The Post that Mott was involved in a reported assault in Denver back in February 2025, but no arrests were made after the victim declined to press charges.
Additionally, he racked up over 20 arrests – including one for felony trespassing in Colorado Springs, just one month before his suicide – and spent time behind bars on at least three separate occassions dating back to 2002, public records show.
Many of his arrests were for violent crimes, including attempted murder using a gun in 2005 — for which he received six years behind bars, after pleading down to assault causing bodily injury with a deadly weapon — domestic violence, felony menacing and assault in 2010; second-degree burglary in 2016 and felony assault on a peace officer in 2020.
In 2017, he attempted to escape prison custody, according to public records.
His other violations, which began when he was just 17 years old, included driving under the influence, a hit-and-run, trespassing and resisting arrest on several occasions.
“We currently are looking for any notes, computers, anything like that, trying to identify places where he most recently was,” Thomas said during the news conference.
Horrifying security video of the runway showed Mott get sucked into one of the engines of the Airbus A-321neo mid-takeoff.
He had jumped the perimeter fence and was on the tarmac before colliding with the plane at 11:19 p.m., the airport confirmed.
Denver International Airport chief executive officer Phil Washington said Tuesday that an alert went off around nine minutes earlier, when an airport operator on duty “reviewed the alarm and identified a herd of deer just outside of the perimeter fence.”
“They did not initially see the trespasser,” Washington said. “The camera view was alternating between the wildlife and the individual. There are some ditches in the area, so the person was out of view for a bit as well.”
“It took approximately 15 seconds for this person to jump over the 8-foot fence topped with barbed wire.
“The time between climbing over the fence and being struck by the plane, again, was approximately two minutes. The location of the incident is about two miles away from the terminal. Given the short time period, we were not able to intervene and prevent this person from reaching the runway,” Washington said.
Thomas said it wasn’t the first time someone jumped the airport’s fence, but “all of them…in the past were apprehended very, very quickly.
“We will look to see what improvements we can make,” the chief said.
Denver airport is the largest in the nation by area — spanning 54 square miles.
Minutes later, the Federal Aviation Administration reported to airport officials that a person had been struck.
The Los Angeles-bound plane was moving at 139 mph at the time of the collision, according to FlightAware.
Shocking audio captured the moments bewildered pilots aboard the flight smashed into Mott – leaving his “limbs” scattered on the runway.
“Tower, Frontier 4345, we’re stopping on the runway. Uh, we just hit somebody… we have an engine fire,” the pilot said, according to air traffic control audio.
“I do have limbs on the runway. I believe the aircraft struck an individual,” the airport staff continued, adding later: “There appear to be human remains on the runway.”
Passenger John Anthens, who was on the plane with his sons, was looking out the window when he saw “the legs of a human spinning around in the engine.”
“The majority of people didn’t know what was going on or what happened, but there was just a big explosion and, obviously, when you hear a big explosion, people start screaming, kids are crying and it was horrific,” Anthens told The Post.
The nose of the plane jerked upward on impact as a “bomb”-like blast rattled the cabin, Anthens said.
The engine burst into flames moments later as passengers remained in their seats at the flight attendants’ behest.
All 224 passengers and seven crew members were safely evacuated from the plane.
Photos showed passengers sliding down an inflatable ramp and wrapped in blankets, standing near the blood-soaked engine.
The airport said 12 passengers were injured during the commotion, and five were taken to the hospital. The runway was closed for roughly nine hours while an investigation was conducted.
The National Transportation Safety Board reportedly said it wouldn’t investigate the incident itself – instead, it will be handled by local law enforcement – but the agency will examine the plane’s emergency evacuation.
Washington said Tuesday that safety is the airport’s number one priority, an investigation into Mott’s death is ongoing and “we will do our best to make sure that the improvements that we need to make are made very, very quickly.”
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