A person who jumped a fence and was on the runway at Denver International Airport was struck and killed by a Frontier Airlines plane during takeoff, airport authorities said. The collision caused an engine fire and forced the passengers to evacuate.
The plane, en route from Denver to Los Angeles International Airport, reported hitting a pedestrian while taking off from DEN Airport at approximately 11:19 p.m. on Friday, according to a post on the airport’s official X account.
An airport spokesman said that the person who jumped the perimeter fence died. They added that the unidentified person was injured two minutes after entering the airport. This person is not believed to be an airport employee.
“We’re stopping on the runway,” the pilot tells the control tower, according to ATC.com. “We just hit someone. The engine’s on fire.”
The pilot told the air traffic controller that they had “231 people” on board and that “one person was walking across the runway.”
The air traffic controller replies that they are “rolling the trucks now” before the pilot tells the tower that “there is smoke in the plane. We will evacuate on the runway.”
Frontier Airlines said in a statement that Flight 4345 was 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 related to the collision.
The airline said the plane was carrying 224 passengers and seven crew members.
The airline said: “We are investigating this incident and collecting further information in coordination with the airport and other safety authorities.”
Passengers were evacuated via slides and emergency crews transported them to the station. An airport spokesman said that 12 passengers suffered minor injuries and five were taken to hospitals.
One passenger, Jacob Athens, posted a video showing people sliding down with their backpacks. He also posted photos of what looks like a damaged engine.
“As we were lifting the plane’s engine exploded. There was so much smoke that we couldn’t even see one foot in front of us,” Athens said on his Facebook page, adding that passengers had to wait for more than an hour on the runway and “there is no transportation or assistance yet in the cold.”
Another video shows passengers calmly walking down the plane’s aisle and using the slide to evacuate. They were told to stay away from the plane.
The Denver Airport said the National Transportation Safety Board has been notified, and Runway 17L, where the accident occurred, has been closed amid an investigation. It reopened on Saturday around 11 a.m
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the person “violated airport security at Denver International Airport, intentionally climbed the perimeter fence, and ran onto the runway.”
He added: “No one should trespass on any airport.”
The accident came a day after a Delta Air Lines employee was killed while working at Orlando International Airport. The airline said in a statement that the employee was killed on Thursday night, without providing details of the incident or the employee’s name.
“We are focused on providing our full support to the family and taking care of our Orlando team during this difficult time,” the airline said. “We are working with local authorities while a full investigation is conducted to determine what happened.”