The National Transportation Safety Board said it is gathering information about a Frontier Airlines evacuation after the airline’s plane hit and killed a person on the runway at Denver International Airport during takeoff. The NTSB said early Sunday that it is collecting details on the emergency response to determine whether the evacuation “meets criteria for a safety investigation.” The flight was set for Los Angeles International Airport.
According to an airport posting on X, the aircraft “reported striking a pedestrian during takeoff at DEN at approximately 11:19 p.m. on Friday.” The AP reported that passengers evacuated via emergency slides, and that an emergency crew bused them to the terminal after the evacuation. An airport spokesperson said 12 passengers received minor injuries and five were taken to hospitals.
Frontier Airlines said 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 it was not clear whether the smoke was linked to the collision. Frontier also said the plane was carrying 224 passengers and seven crew members, and that it was “investigating this incident and gathering more information in coordination with the airport and other safety authorities.”
Footage obtained by The Associated Press showed passengers evacuating an aircraft using inflatable emergency slides following the incident. Some passengers expressed concern, the AP reported, including being stuck in the plane for several minutes as smoke filled the cabin and leaving the aircraft on the tarmac in the cold once outside. The footage also showed some passengers coming down the slide with what looked to be carry-on bags.
The NTSB’s Sarah Taylor Sulick said the agency was gathering information about the emergency evacuation and that it could have more details in a few hours. Frontier did not respond early Sunday to a request for information about the evacuation, according to the AP.
Denver Police Department officials said the investigation was ongoing and that the identity of the person on the runway will be confirmed and released by the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner. Denver airport CEO Phil Washington said he “knows” there are questions still to be answered, and that “as this is an active investigation with numerous other agencies involved, it is going to take some time as we are still confirming what information we can share at this time.” Washington also characterized the incident as a “horrible and preventable tragedy.”
Washington said airport officials do not believe the person who was struck was an airport employee. The AP reported that the person crossed a runway about two minutes after jumping a fence, and that details the airport has released have been limited while investigators coordinate.
Air traffic information reported by ATC.com included communications in which the pilot told the control tower, “We’re stopping on the runway,” and said, “We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire.” The pilot also told air traffic controllers they had “231 souls” on board and that an “individual was walking across the runway.” The air traffic controller responded, “We’re rolling the trucks now,” before the pilot said, “we have smoke in the aircraft. We are going to evacuate on the runway.”
Passengers described the moments leading up to and during the evacuation to local media. Mohamed Hassan told Colorado’s 9NEWS, “Honestly, I thought I was going to die,” and said people around him were screaming and crying as the cabin filled with smoke. Another passenger, Nikil Thalanki, told local media that he felt “this jerk” as the plane was about to take off, and said smoke filled the cabin completely and made it “super hard to breathe.” Kimberly Randle said passengers were panicking and desperate to get off the aircraft, telling local media that “It was chaos everywhere.”
The incident has also drawn attention to the role of passenger behavior during emergency evacuations. The AP said the NTSB has previously described concerns about evacuations, including passengers leaving with carry-on items, referencing an April report on an evacuation aboard a United Airlines flight at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport. In that report, the NTSB described how some passengers became unseated and retrieved belongings, and said its analysis found that “widespread panic” can affect evacuation dynamics even when fire or smoke conditions are not confirmed.
The AP also noted the Denver evacuation occurred after another airport-related death, the day before a Delta Air Lines employee was killed while on the job at the Orlando International Airport. In a statement, Delta said the employee was killed Thursday night and said it was working with local authorities as an investigation got underway.