Nearly two years after a tragic and unusual death at Salt Lake City International Airport, the family of Kyler Efinger has filed a wrongful death and negligence lawsuit against Salt Lake City, which operates the airport.
Lawsuit: SLC Airport Blamed For Tragic Death Of Kyler Efinger
The parents of 30-year-old Kyler Efinger have filed a lawsuit in Utah’s Third Judicial District Court against Salt Lake City, alleging failures in airport security, design, monitoring, and emergency response that they say allowed their son to access the airfield and ultimately led to his death.
Efinger died on January 1, 2024, after walking off the secure terminal area, gaining access to the tarmac, and crawling inside the engine cowling of an Airbus A220-100 aircraft that was taxiing after deicing. He sustained fatal blunt force injuries when his head was pulled into the engine blades.
The suit, filed on December 30, 2025, claims the airport was “so inadequately designed, managed, monitored and secured” that a visibly disoriented person could move unimpeded from inside the terminal onto the active airfield. Efinger’s parents, Judd and Lisa Efinger, allege that lapses in security systems and response protocols made the tragedy possible.
What The Lawsuit Says Happened
According to the complaint, Efinger, a Park City man diagnosed with bipolar disorder about a decade earlier, passed through airport security at about 8:50 pm while traveling to Denver to visit a sick grandparent. As the lawsuit describes, he began acting unusually inside the terminal and eventually exited through emergency exit doors that lacked delayed-egress or tracking systems.
Once outside the sterile area, Efinger walked nearly a mile across restricted portions of the airport, including taxiways and deicing areas, before being spotted near a taxiing aircraft. The lawsuit alleges that airport personnel repeatedly misdirected police officers looking for him, which delayed efforts to locate him outside. At one point, a responding officer described the search as a “wild goose chase.”
Despite reports indicating that a visibly distressed, barefoot man had exited onto the tarmac, the complaint says airport dispatchers failed to communicate his actual location to responding officers and did not promptly notify air traffic controllers or pilots about an unauthorized person on the field.
Here’s CCTV video of what happened:
The Core Claims
At its heart, this case is about duty of care and foreseeability. The family argues that airports must plan for the reality that distressed passengers sometimes make irrational decisions, and that layers of design, monitoring, and response are supposed to prevent a person from reaching an active airfield.
The lawsuit includes claims that the city’s operation of the airport fell short in several areas, including security monitoring, emergency exit controls, coordination among airport personnel and law enforcement, and timely response once it became clear a person had entered a restricted area.
The parents’ complaint includes multiple causes of action, including:
- Wrongful death – Arguing the city breached its duty of care by failing to maintain safe premises and adequate security.
- Negligence – Including alleged failures to properly monitor security systems, train staff to recognize and respond to mental health crises, and coordinate an effective emergency response.
- Premises liability – Claiming the airport was unsafe because emergency exits and tarmac access controls were insufficient.
The complaint asserts that if city personnel had located Efinger “30 seconds sooner,” he would still be alive, and that better communication among airport operations, police, and air traffic control could have prevented him from reaching the aircraft. It seeks a jury trial and damages exceeding $300,000, including funeral and burial expenses and other harms alleged under Utah law. Salt Lake City has not provided detailed public comment on the allegations, citing pending litigation.
You can read the full complaint here.
CONCLUSION
This lawsuit raises difficult questions about where airport security ends and airport operations begin, and how quickly multiple teams can coordinate when a person breaches a controlled area. It’s also a question of personal responsibly: why is a bipolar man being sent to Denver alone by his parents? The facts of this incident are extraordinary, but the underlying issues are not. Emergency exits, monitoring, communication, and rapid response are exactly the systems airports rely upon to prevent rare events from turning into tragedies, but like most things in life, where there is a will, there is a way…
What are your thoughts on this case?
image: SLC CCTV footage
The lawyers who filed this ridiculous case should be sanctioned
Exactly.
Emergency exits are required for a reason, as many tragic fires (Iroquis Theatre, Cocoanut Grove, Station Nightclub, Düsseldorf Airport, and many more) have shown. Many provisions in building/fire codes are written in blood.
No amount of infrastructure changes can stop someone from choosing to kill themselves.
That is right, you can’t prevent someone from killing themselves per se, but in this case the “airport” was negligent in the amount of time they gave the “victim” to “kill himself”…. If he “walked” a mile on the tarmac and once can run say a 7 minute mile, imagine how long it is to walk it!
I wouldn’t go that far; it’s not blatantly frivolous or unethical. Might not prevail, but, still, they can try.
I think companies should be held to higher standards than many are but in this case this is completely stupid. If someone is intent on doing something crazy well, it becomes their problem and not the companies.
If I want to take a piece of metal and stick it into a light socket I’m the one at fault and not the metal device needing a warning sticker or something similar.
So just ban anyone who has any history of mental health issues from the secure part of all airports. Simply turn them away at all TSA checkpoints. Problem solved.
Unreasonable? Not as unreasonable as the parents’ lawsuit.
The airport and Delta should file counter-suits alleging parental and familial neglect for failing to supervise their obviously unwell and possibly suicidal son, leading to a serious disruption of operations that caused them significant economic loss. You wanna play the blame game? Roll them bones!
Unless the 30 yr old “kid” is under a conservatorship, then he’s not anyone’s responsibility….
A smart attorney could persuade a dumb jury otherwise.
If this young man has bouts of instability ??? Why would his parents let him travel alone to visit a sick grandparent??? What would a sick grandparent have to do to keep him safe? Totally irresponsible on their part!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You realize you are talking about a 30 year old man? Unless there was a conservatorship, your logic is off…..
I think the point is that this individual looks as though he should be under a conservatorship.
I’m going to say 25% liability, as it should be foreseen that when there is a breach (emergency door opened), you properly handle it. While someone “snapping” and deciding to breach is not foreseen, the protocols for handling a breach are foreseen and obviously were not sufficient, if not negligent….
I mean based on the length of time of the incident (walked over 1 mile). If he had ran out and then “engined” himself immediately, then yeah, totally unforeseen!
You are wrong, but only 25% wrong.
Ok, then 18.75% liable!
This is the most American lawsuit ever.
A person who willfully breaks the law and gets into danger / killed blames everyone else for his actions….
The parents should be publicly shamed for failing to supervise their son when the clearly knew he was unstable. Where was their duty of care? The airport or delta is not their babysitter.
Sheesh. This is why things are so expensive here. To pay the lawyers.
Airport suicide booths would really help, the TSA should look into that option. Such devices should be well marked. Those that think they are ironically marked and stepped in expecting something different should not be titled to compensation if their family wishes to argue they only thought it was a joke.
Or put ICE agents at the airports, they seem to have good enough aim and slow enough reaction time to call for medical services that they would be sure to die.
I like the Airport Suicide Booth idea. Put extra booths around the gates used by Spirit.
Exactly how can the parents be responsible unless they had a legal custody of an adult? How can the airport be held liable for this guy running rampant on the ramp? Next, the parents will try to blame Delta for being on the taxiway and P&W for the engine running. Maybe the pilots should sue for mental distress and Delta for damages to the engine. And, leave it to some troll to try injecting politics into this article.