A person who jumped a fence and was on a runway at Denver International Airport in Colorado was struck and killed by a Frontier Airlines plane during takeoff, airport authorities said.
The collision sparked an engine fire and forced passengers to evacuate.
The plane, on route from Denver to Los Angeles International Airport, “reported striking a pedestrian during takeoff at DEN at approximately 11:19pm on Friday,” the Denver airport said on social media.
Photo: Jack Estenssoro via AP
A spokesperson for the airport said the person, who jumped a perimeter fence, has died.
The unidentified person was hit two minutes after entering the airport, they said.
The person is not believed to be an airport employee.
“We’re stopping on the runway,” the pilot told the control tower, according to 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 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.”
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 bused them to the terminal.
The airport spokesperson said 12 passengers sustained minor injuries and five were taken to hospitals.
One passenger, Jacob Athens, posted a video online showing people sliding down with their backpacks. 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 more than an hour on the runway and “still no transport or help with the cold.”
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