NEW ORLEANS — A 63-year-old man attacked Transportation Security Administration officers with wasp spray and a machete Friday night before he was shot by a law enforcement officer at a security gate to a busy concourse at Louis Armstrong International Airport outside New Orleans, the authorities said.

Sheriff Newell Normand of Jefferson Parish identified the man as Richard White, who had worked as a taxi driver, and said he did not know what set off the attack.

A little before 8 p.m., Mr. White pulled a can of wasp spray out of a paper bag and began to spray one T.S.A. officer and then another, the sheriff said. Then with his other hand, he drew a machete from his pants and began swinging it wildly at the officers. One officer tried to defend himself with a piece of luggage as Mr. White chased him and others through the metal detector, Sheriff Normand said.

As they turned a corner back into the terminal, a deputy with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office who was stationed by the security gates drew her pistol and fired three shots at Mr. White, hitting him in the left side of his face, chest and thigh. One of the shots hit another T.S.A. officer who had been fleeing Mr. White, the sheriff said.