Passengers described panic, smoke-filled cabins and chaos during emergency evacuations after the Denver runway incident.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday it was gathering information about the Frontier Airlines evacuation. After the plane hit and killed one person on the runway during takeoff at Denver International Airport.
The plane, flying from Denver to Los Angeles International Airport, “struck a pedestrian while taking off at DEN around 11:19 p.m. Friday,” according to a post on the airport’s official X account.
Passengers were evacuated via slides and emergency crews rushed them to the terminal. An airport spokesman said 12 passengers suffered minor injuries and five were taken to hospital.
Some on board expressed concerns about the evacuation, including being trapped on the plane for minutes as smoke filled the cabin and being left on the cold tarmac after they left. The video also showed some passengers descending the slides with what appeared to be carry-on luggage.
“We are gathering information about the emergency evacuations to determine whether they met the criteria for a safety investigation,” NTSB spokesperson Sarah Taylor Sulick said early Sunday, adding that the agency could have more details within hours.
Frontier Airlines did not respond to a request for information about the evacuations early Sunday.
A spokesman for the Denver Police Department said Sunday that the investigation into the incident is ongoing and the Denver Medical Examiner’s Office will confirm and release the identities of those on the track.
The man was shot two minutes after he jumped the fence and crossed the track. The person is not believed to be an airport employee.
“We are coming to a stop on the runway,” the pilot told the control tower, according to the ATC.com website. “We just hit a guy. Our engine is on fire.”
The pilot told air traffic controllers there were “231 people” on board and “someone was crossing the runway.”
Air traffic controllers responded that they were “moving trucks now,” and the pilot then told the tower they had “smoke coming from the aircraft. We’re going to evacuate on the runway.”
Frontier Airlines said in a statement that Flight 4345 was the flight involved in the collision and that “smoke was reported in the cabin and the pilot aborted the takeoff.” It was unclear whether the smoke was related to the collision.
The airline said the plane was carrying 224 passengers and seven crew members.
“We are investigating the incident and coordinating with the airport and other security authorities to gather additional information,” the airline said.
Passengers said there was panic on the plane after the engine caught fire and smoke began to pour from the cabin.
“Honestly, I thought I was going to die,” passenger Mohamed Hassan told 9NEWS Colorado.
“A lot of people next to me were screaming and crying. I just closed my eyes,” he said. “At the time, you don’t really think about anything, you know? Because we were about to take off and I heard the roar, so I wasn’t sure what was going on. I just thought something really, really bad had happened.”
Passenger Nikil Thalanki told local media he felt “a jolt” as the plane was about to take off, adding that it felt like the wheels had left the ground but then came back down.
“The engine caught fire. There was a lot of sparks. It stopped immediately,” Taranki said. “When we saw the sparks on the plane, the smoke completely filled the cabin. It was very difficult to breathe.”
Passengers were panicking and desperate to get off the plane, Kimberly Randall said.
“After a few minutes, they finally opened the door. People were running out of the plane,” he said. “There was chaos everywhere.”
The National Transportation Safety Board has expressed concerns about evacuations for years, especially of passengers leaving with carry-on luggage. In an April report on the evacuation of a United Airlines flight at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, the National Transportation Safety Board described a disturbing scene.
passengers are Evacuation via slide Last year, the plane came down the stairs after an engine problem caused smoke and fire on the right wing during takeoff.
Although flight attendants told passengers to stay in their seats, some began shouting: “The engine is on fire, let me out!” This sparked “widespread panic” and prompted many passengers to get up and start retrieving their belongings. Some climbed over the seats and started blocking the aisles.
Three large men insisted on an evacuation, pushing a flight attendant out of the way and sliding down the slide before it could fully deploy, causing the slide to deflate and render it unusable.
“Crew training emphasizes decisive command presence and passenger control during evacuation; however, this incident demonstrates that rapid escalation of passenger behavior can impact evacuation dynamics even in the absence of confirmed fire or smoke conditions,” the report said.
The Denver incident came a day after a Delta Air Lines employee was killed while working at Orlando International Airport. The airline said in a statement that the employee was killed Thursday night, but did not provide details of the incident or the employee’s name.
“We are committed to providing our full support to the family and caring for our Orlando team during this difficult time,” the airline said. “We are working with local authorities and a full investigation is underway to determine what happened.”
Associated Press writer John Raby contributed from Charleston, West Virginia.
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