Frontier Jet Hits Person on Runway During Takeoff at Denver Airport

Denver Airport, also in a statement on Saturday morning, said that the person who was killed had jumped the airport’s perimeter fence and was hit just minutes later while crossing a runway. That person, who has not been identified, is not believed to be an employee of the airport, the statement added.

The airport examined its fence line after the incident and found it to be intact, the airport said.

Sean Duffy, the U.S. secretary of transportation, described the person killed as a trespasser who “breached airport security at Denver Int’l Airport, deliberately scaled a perimeter fence, and ran out onto a runway.”

A recording posted by the ATC.com app, which relays air traffic radio, captured the pilots describing the incident. “We’re stopping on the runway,” a pilot told the air traffic control tower. “We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire.” Later, a pilot told the tower that “an individual was walking across the runway.”

The crew told air traffic control that it was evacuating the plane on the runway because of the smoke inside.

Denver Airport said in a statement that the episode happened at about 11:20 p.m. and that firefighters had put out an engine fire on the plane. The passengers were taken back to the terminal by bus, it added. The airport said that 12 people reported minor injuries and five were taken to nearby hospitals.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/09/us/frontier-airlines-plane-collision-denver.html