Guards at the Stade de France in northern Paris stopped a suicide bomber entering the stadium on Friday when tens of thousands of spectators, including the French president, François Hollande, were watching a friendly football match between the national terms of France and Germany.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the attacker was discovered wearing an explosive vest when he was frisked at the entrance to the stadium about fifteen minutes into the game. While backing away from security, he blew himself up.

Minutes later, two more suicide bombers detonated their explosives in the vicinity of the stadium, killing one.

The account sheds light on why the suicide attacks on Stade de France failed to cause the carnage that occurred at the Bataclan concert hall and restaurants across Paris.

127 people died and 352 were injured in terrorist attacks throughout Paris on Friday night.

The deadliest attack occurred at the Bataclan theater where gunmen shot indiscriminately into a crowd of hundreds at a rock concert. They blew themselves up when anti-terror units stormed the building.

Seven out of eight attackers killed themselves using suicide vests. Another was shot dead by police.

Hollande was evacuated from the stadium when explosions were heard outside and later declared a state of emergency applying to the whole of France — the first in half a century. 1,500 army reinforcements were deployed to Paris and France’s borders were closed.

The self-declared Islamic State, a militant Islamist group that controls territory in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attacks.

France is engaged in military operations against the organization.