A Frontier Airlines plane hit and killed a person on the runway of Denver’s international airport during takeoff, sparking an engine fire and forcing passengers to evacuate, authorities said.
The plane, headed to Los Angeles, “reported striking a pedestrian during takeoff” at about 11.19pm on Friday, the Denver airport’s official X account wrote.
An airport spokesperson said the person who was hit by the plane had jumped a perimeter fence and died.
The dead person has not been identified but was not believed to be an airport employee. The person had been at the airport for about two minutes before being hit, the facility spokesperson said.
Trump’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, described the person killed as a “trespasser” who breached security at Denver’s airport, “deliberately scaled a permit fence and ran out on to a runway”.
“The tresspasser on the runway was then struck by Frontier Airlines” flight 4345 “during takeoff at high speed”, Duffy added in an X post.
Duffy also said 12 people were hurt, and five of those were hospitalized. He said local law enforcement in charge of airport security would investigate that aspect with support from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
The X post from Duffy concluded with: “No one should EVER trespass on an airport.”
The pilot of the plane involved told the control tower at one point: “We’re stopping on the runway,” according to the site ATC.com. “We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire.”
The pilot told the air traffic controller they have “231 souls” on board – and that an “individual was walking across the runway”.
The air traffic controller responded that they were “rolling the trucks now” before the pilot told the tower they “have smoke in the aircraft”.
“We are going to evacuate on the runway,” the pilot added.
Frontier Airlines said that “smoke was reported in the cabin and the pilots aborted takeoff” after the collision. It was not clear whether the smoke was linked to the crash with the person.
The plane, an Airbus A321, “was carrying 224 passengers and seven crew members”, the airline said. “We are investigating this incident and gathering more information in coordination with the airport and other safety authorities.”
Passengers were then evacuated using slides, and the emergency crew bused them to the terminal. Meanwhile, firefighters responded to the plane, Duffy said.
Denver’s airport said the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) had been notified and that runway 17L – where the incident took place – would remain closed while an investigation was conducted.
A video that appeared to be taken by a flight passenger and circulating on social media evidently showed the moment the person was struck. The video captured the sound of a loud crash as well as people screaming.
Video of passengers getting off the plane also evidently showed blood on the inside of the aircraft’s engine casing.
Friday’s episode at Denver’s airport came one day after a Delta Airline employee died on Thursday night at Orlando’s international airport when a vehicle struck a jet bridge next to an airplane with passengers onboard, as the local news outlet WESH reported.
Meanwhile, on 3 May, a United Airlines plane arriving in Newark, New Jersey, from Venice, Italy, clipped a delivery truck and a light pole, which in turn struck a Jeep. Only the delivery truck driver was injured, but the plane was damaged extensively and the NTSB classified the case as an accident while also opening an investigation.