An off-duty TSA agent fell to his death from a hotel balcony inside Orlando’s International airport, sending confused travelers scattering past security checkpoints unscreened and causing massive flight delays.
According to CNN, there are varying descriptions about what happened.
Orlando police said a man in his 40s jumped, in what seems to be an apparent suicide, from the Hyatt Regency Hotel onto an atrium floor in the main terminal around 9:30 am.
But TSA spokesperson Jenny Burke, who identified the man as an off-duty TSA officer, said the man fell from one of the multilevel balconies in the hotel, which overlooks an area where passengers line up for one of the airport’s security checkpoints.
The man, whose name has not been released, was found in critical condition but was pronounced dead by the time he reached the hospital.
The melee caused some issues, and a lack of security and about 140 passengers had to be rescreened.
At around 3:00 pm, the airport tweeted that the wait at some checkpoints initially affected had been reduced to less than 15 minutes and that 97 departing flights had been delayed and another 45 had been canceled.
According to the publication, at 6:30 p.m., about 117 flights from the airport were delayed and 45 were canceled. Dozens of flights that came into the airport were also either delayed or canceled.
