A Frontier Airlines plane taking off from Denver International Airport struck and killed a person on a runway Friday night, airport authorities said, sparking an engine fire and forcing passengers to evacuate.
The plane, heading from Denver to Los Angeles International Airport, “reported striking a pedestrian during takeoff at DEN at approximately 11:19 p.m. on Friday,” the airport’s official X account wrote.
The airport said the person, who jumped a perimeter fence, died. The person isn’t believed to have been an airport employee and authorities said Saturday morning that they didn’t know the person’s identity.
“We’re stopping on the runway,” the pilot told the airport’s control tower according to the site ATC.com. “We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire.”
The pilot told the air traffic controller they had “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 had “smoke in the aircraft. We are going to evacuate on the runway.”
Frontier Airlines said in a statement 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 crash with the pedestrian.
“The 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 via slides and the emergency crew bused them to the terminal.
The airport said 12 people reported minor injuries and that five of those were transported to local hospitals.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on social media that “a trespasser breached airport security at Denver Int’l Airport, deliberately scaled a perimeter fence, and ran out onto a runway.”
“We are extremely saddened by this incident and express our sympathies to those involved,” the airport said on social media.
Denver Airport said the National Transportation Safety Board had been notified and that runway 17L, where the incident took place, will remain closed while an investigation is conducted.
The Associated Press and Colorado Sun staff writer Jesse Paul contributed to this report.