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An individual who trespassed onto the runway at Denver International Airport met a tragic fate when they were hit and killed by a Frontier Airlines aircraft during its takeoff.
This unfortunate incident resulted in an engine fire, necessitating the evacuation of passengers aboard the plane.
The aircraft, which was en route from Denver to Los Angeles International Airport, reported the collision with a pedestrian at approximately 11:19 p.m. on Friday (Saturday AEST), as shared on the airport’s official X account.
According to an airport spokesperson, the person who breached the perimeter fence succumbed to their injuries.
The individual, whose identity remains unknown, was struck just two minutes after accessing the airport grounds and is not believed to have been an airport employee.
“We’re stopping on the runway,” the pilot tells the control tower according to the site ATC.com.
“We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire.”
The pilot tells the air traffic controller they have “231 souls” on board and that an “individual was walking across the runway”.
The air traffic controller responds that they are “rolling the trucks now” before the pilot tells the tower they “have smoke in the aircraft. We are going to evacuate on the runway.”
Frontier Airlines said in a statement that flight 4345 was the one involved in the collision and that “smoke was reported in the cabin and the pilots aborted takeoff”.
It was not clear whether the smoke was linked to the collision.
The airline said the plane was carrying 224 passengers and seven crew members.
“We are investigating this incident and gathering more information in coordination with the airport and other safety authorities,” the airline said.
Passengers were evacuated via slides and the emergency crew transported them to the terminal.
The airport spokesperson said 12 passengers suffered minor injuries and five were taken to hospitals.
One passenger, Jacob Athens, posted video showing people sliding down the evacuation slide. He also posted photos of what looked like a damaged engine.
“As we were lifting off the engine of the plane exploded. There was so much smoke we couldn’t even see 1 ft in front of us,” Athens said on his Facebook page, adding that passengers had to wait for over a hour on the runway and “still no transport or help with the cold”.
Other video shows passengers calmly walking down the aisle of the plane and using the slide to evacuate. They were told to step away from the plane.
Denver Airport said the National Transportation Safety Board had been notified and that runway 17L, where the incident took place, was closed amid an investigation. It reopened on Saturday at around 11 am local time.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the person “breached airport security at Denver Int’l Airport, deliberately scaled a perimeter fence, and ran out onto a runway.”
He added: “No one should EVER trespass on an airport.”
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