Security workers at Denver International Airport missed a fence breach by a man who walked onto an active runway and was fatally struck by a Frontier Airlines flight, airport officials said Tuesday. The man, 41, had scaled an 8-foot perimeter fence in a remote area of the sprawling 53-square-mile airport late Friday night, triggering a ground-based radar alarm that was mistakenly attributed to a nearby herd of deer.
The alarm activated minutes before the intruder scaled the fence. A worker at the city-owned airport checked a surveillance camera and saw the deer in the area but did not initially notice the trespasser, said airport Chief Executive Officer Phillip Washington. “The camera view was alternating between the wildlife and the individual. There are some ditches in the area, so the person was out of view for a bit as well,” Washington said.
The man crossed about 650 feet from the fence to the runway and was inside the perimeter for only two minutes before being hit by the Frontier Airlines plane traveling at roughly 150 miles per hour, he said. Emergency personnel were dispatched after the pilot notified air traffic controllers of the collision, airport representatives said in response to questions from The Associated Press. The airport declined to provide details on its procedures for dealing with trespassers or how often they enter the facility.
The collision occurred on the airport’s easternmost north-south runway, at least 1.25 miles from any terminal buildings. The plane, carrying 231 passengers and crew bound for Los Angeles, struck the man with its right engine, which burst into flame. Passengers evacuated via slides. Twelve people sustained minor injuries, and five were taken to hospitals; four had been released by Tuesday, Washington said.
A black-and-white video released by the airport shows, from a distance, a figure walking toward the runway with arms swaying. The person crosses onto the runway at a slight angle and seconds later the plane passes, striking the figure with its right engine, which bursts into flame.
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The man died by suicide, authorities said. No note was immediately found, and the manner of death was determined based on the scene investigation, a records review and a postmortem examination, said Sterling McLaren, chief medical examiner for the city and county of Denver. She described the act as “a purposeful act with a foreseeable fatal outcome.” Denver police Chief Ron Thomas said investigators were contacting the man’s family and those who knew him to learn more about his motivations.
The fatality highlights the persistent challenge of airport perimeter security. The Denver airport is surrounded by about 36 miles of perimeter fence, which airport officials say is continuously inspected. Still, breaches occur at airports nationwide dozens of times annually, said Jeff Price, a security expert who was assistant director of security at the Denver airport in the 1990s.
Price said the vast majority of trespassers are intoxicated or simply “messing around just to see if they could do it,” and they typically don’t pose a real threat. Denver also gets rare individuals who jump the fence seeking to prove a conspiracy theory about a UFO base at the airport, he said.
The Transportation Security Administration oversees airport security programs, including perimeter-security requirements. Fences are typically 6 to 8 feet tall with barbed wire at the top and must be approved by federal inspectors, but there are no set rules on their construction, Price said. Major airports such as Denver typically have intrusion-detection systems that include cameras and motion sensors, and some systems detect the seismic impact of people dropping to the ground. “It’s really not that difficult to jump an airport perimeter fence,” Price said. “They meet the standards for TSA, but the standards are not that robust.”
The National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday it is gathering information about the evacuation. An agency spokesperson said an investigation would be launched if it is determined the injuries meet the definition of “serious” — which can include hospitalization for more than 48 hours, a broken bone, or burns affecting more than 5% of the body. The board has not yet decided whether to open a formal probe.