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A Man Jumped a Runway Fence at Denver Airport. A Packed Frontier Airlines Jet Was Already Accelerating Toward Him.
A Frontier Airlines plane killed a runway trespasser and caught fire during takeoff at Denver International Airport, forcing the emergency evacuation of 224 passengers.
Click by Miguel Ángel Sanz
The air traffic controller had just cleared the flight for takeoff and wished the pilot a good night.
Seconds later, everything changed.
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Frontier Airlines Flight 4345 was accelerating down the runway at Denver International Airport at close to 150 miles per hour when it struck a person who had jumped the perimeter fence just two minutes earlier.
The pilot's words to the control tower were immediate and direct.
"We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire."
There were 231 souls on board.
Passenger Jose Cervantes heard the thud first. Then he looked out and saw the right wing on fire. He said he thought he was going to burn to death.
Smoke filled the cabin of the Airbus A321. Denver Fire Department extinguished the engine fire quickly. But the damage was done and 224 passengers had no way of knowing that yet.
They evacuated down inflatable emergency slides onto the runway in the middle of the night.
Twelve passengers reported minor injuries from the evacuation. Five were taken to nearby hospitals. The trespasser was killed on impact.
Here is the detail that makes this harder to process.
The fence the person jumped was examined afterward by airport authorities and found to be completely intact. No breach. No structural failure. Someone deliberately scaled it and ran onto an active runway at 11 o'clock at night while a commercial airliner was cleared for takeoff.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was blunt in his statement. He said the individual deliberately scaled the perimeter fence and ran onto the runway. He said no one should ever trespass on an airport.
If you have followed this far, here is the part that stays with you.
A commercial jet at takeoff speed covers ground faster than most people can process in real time. The pilot had no ability to stop in time. The air traffic controller had no way of knowing someone was on the runway. The fence was intact.
There was no warning. No time. Nothing anyone in that cockpit could have done differently.
The runway was closed while the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board launched investigations. Most of the 224 passengers eventually reboarded a new Frontier flight and continued to Los Angeles.
They landed safely. Hours late. Shaken. But safe.
The pilot's three words to the tower will stay on the air traffic control audio record permanently.
"We just hit somebody."
At 150 miles per hour on a runway in Denver, that sentence lasted less than a second.
Editor's Note: The incident at Denver International Airport raises serious questions about airport perimeter security and the unthinkable scenarios that crews, passengers and air traffic controllers are never fully prepared for. The investigation by the FAA and NTSB is ongoing.
