Italy's Bergamo airport closed after man dies on runway
Flight operations were suspended from 1020 to 12 local time (0820-1000 GMT) 'due to a problem that occurred on the taxiway', the airport said in a statement, adding that the incident was being investigated by authorities.
A spokesperson confirmed that a man had died, adding that he was neither a passenger nor a member of airport staff.
According to the ANSA news agency, the man was sucked to death by the engine of a departing Volotea flight.
The Italian press office for the Spanish low-cost carrier was not immediately available for comment.
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Flights delayed at Italian airport after man sucked into aircraft engine
MILAN — Orio al Serio airport in the northern Italian city of Bergamo suspended flights on Tuesday due to a runway incident. Local media reported that it was caused by someone running onto the tarmac and getting sucked into an airport engine. The Volotea flight headed to Asturias in Spain was performing a manoeuvre before taking off. The Bergamo Milan airport authority, known as SACBO, closed the Bergamo-Orio al Serio airport at 10.20 local time. All flights were suspended 'due to a problem that occurred on the taxiway.' These included Ryanair services to Crotone, Prague, Zadar, Tirana, Kos, Malta, Naples, Porto, Alghero, and a Eurowings flight to Dusseldorf. Air traffic resumed at 12pm, but there are still some delays. These include Ryanair services to Fez, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Bristol and Cagliari, an AJet flight to Istanbul and an AirArabia flight to Casablanca. Corriere della Sera newspaper, citing unnamed airport officials, said the 35-year-old man had abandoned his car outside the terminal and run through the arrivals area on the ground floor. He accessed the runway via a security door and ran towards the Volotea plane as it was pushing back in preparation for takeoff. Ansa, an Italian news agency, confirmed the victim was neither a passenger nor an airport employee. It added that the man is thought to have taken his own life. There was no immediate response to calls placed to the authority's headquarters. — Euronews
Al Arabiya
08-07-2025
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Italy's Bergamo airport closed after man dies on runway
Italy's Bergamo airport, which offers low-cost airline connections to and from nearby Milan, was temporarily closed on Tuesday after a man died on a runway during take-off preparations for a flight. Flight operations were suspended from 1020 to 12 local time (0820-1000 GMT) 'due to a problem that occurred on the taxiway', the airport said in a statement, adding that the incident was being investigated by authorities. A spokesperson confirmed that a man had died, adding that he was neither a passenger nor a member of airport staff. According to the ANSA news agency, the man was sucked to death by the engine of a departing Volotea flight. The Italian press office for the Spanish low-cost carrier was not immediately available for comment.
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Pope Aims To Restore 'Body And Spirit' During Vacation That Brings A Pontiff Back To Castel Gandolfo
Pope Leo XIV headed to the papal summer residence on Sunday for a six-week vacation, giving the hilltop town of Castel Gandolfo back its most illustrious resident after Pope Francis stayed away during his 10-year pontificate. Leo bid farewell to Rome during his Sunday noon blessing, saying he was taking a brief period of rest. 'I hope everyone can have some vacation time to restore the body and spirit,' Leo said from his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square. The 69-year-old Chicago native is resuming the papal tradition of leaving the Vatican for the hot summer months in favor of the relatively cooler climes of the Alban Hills south of Rome. The area has been a favorite getaway for Roman rulers since the time of the Emperor Domitian in the first century. It's Leo's first break after a frenetic few weeks of inaugural audiences, outings, and Holy Year celebrations following his May 8 election as history's first American pope. He'll have a handful of public events while on holiday–Masses, Sunday noon prayers, and even some events back at the Vatican–but officials expect he will use the time to read in on key issues facing his new pontificate. Pope Urban VIII built the papal palace in Castel Gandolfo in 1624 to give popes an escape from Rome. It was enlarged over succeeding pontificates to its present size of 55 hectares (136 acres), bigger than Vatican City itself. On the grounds are a working farm, manicured gardens, an observatory run by Jesuit astronomers and, more recently, an environmental educational center inspired by Francis' 2015 encyclical 'Laudato Si' ('Praised Be'). Popes past used it regularly in summer, drawing huge crowds of pilgrims who would come on Sundays to hear his noon blessing, which was delivered inside the inner courtyard of the palace. Pope Benedict XVI famously closed out his papacy in the estate on Feb. 28, 2013. But Francis, a homebody who never took a proper vacation during his 10-year pontificate, decided to remain in Rome in summer. So for Castel Gandolfo, Leo's vacation is a welcome return. The town suffered an initial economic hit from pope-free summers when Francis opted for staycations, but once he turned the papal palace and gardens into a year-round museum, that ended up benefiting the town even more, shopkeepers say. 'He made access to these structures possible, which no pope ever did in 400 years,' said Simone Mariani, who runs a restaurant in town that benefited from the steady flow of tourists much more than the summer-only Sunday crowds of the past. 'He brought tourism that was good for the whole town.' But that didn't make up for the emotional loss felt in a town whose rhythms for generations revolved around regular papal visits. 'When the pope arrived, the palace doors would open, the Swiss Guards would stand at attention and the town would come to life,' said Patrizia Gasperini, whose family runs a souvenir shop on the main piazza a few steps from the palace front door. 'All year we'd miss the color, the movement, but we knew when summer came he would return,' she said. 'So when Pope Francis decided not to come, we were upset on an emotional level beyond the economic level.' Mayor Alberto De Angelis said he hopes Leo will decide to use Castel Gandolfo not just for summer breaks but for periodic vacations during the rest of the year, as St. John Paul II often did. There is also a tradition of popes using their time at Castel Gandolfo to draft important church documents and encyclicals, and De Angelis said he hopes Leo follows in that tradition. 'We hope Pope Leo produces some text, some encyclical here that has a global reach,' he said. 'And then to say that it came from Castel Gandolfo, that he was inspired and produced this text from here for the whole world.'
