Andrew Westlake, a 30-year-old male from Britain has died after reportedly falling 50ft from a ledge at a Turkish airport, with witnesses alleging he said he ‘wanted it to end.’
He was rushed to hospital from Dalaman airport in south-west Turkey but later died at the hospital.
Mr Westlake had apparently been waiting three days for a flight home after ‘losing his ticket’, and earlier reports had wrongly suggested he had plunged 15ft out of an aircraft door.
Relatives of the deceased stated that this was Mr. Westlake’s first family holiday with his partner and one-year-old daughter.
One eyewitness explained that the incident happened inside the terminal at 3.30am on Tuesday and they tried to help him after he crashed into a glass barrier, only for him to ‘jump over a balcony.’
“My partner watched him stand back up and he backed away from the barrier and then just ran for it and hopped over straight down onto the floor below,” an eyewitness was quoted as saying.
“When my partner helped him up he looked so sad and lost. The image that my partner still has in his head is the man looking so desperate.”
Local media reports that he argued with cabin crew after boarding the flight at 3pm, and he was earlier ordered off after posing a risk to flight safety.
In 2013, he was jailed for terrorising his own family, with a court hearing of Westlake’s ‘history of alcohol abuse.’
When police arrived to the scene of the 2013 offence, they found Westlake lying on the kitchen floor having stabbed himself twice in the stomach.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman confirmed: “We are supporting the family of a British man following his death in Turkey and are in touch with the local authorities.”