As smoke started to flow into the cabin, terrifying video from inside the Frontier Airlines aircraft showed the moment the plane struck and killed someone on the runway.
At Denver International Airport on Friday night, Flight 4345, bound for Los Angeles, struck and killed a pedestrian who had allegedly climbed a barrier before takeoff, leaving “human remains” on the runway.
Videos that just surfaced showed what passengers saw, including a troubling film that captured the precise moment of contact, which they described as “feeling like an explosion.”
Jose Cervantas, a passenger, told The National Desk, “We’re going pretty fast and I felt like the plane started to tilt up when out of nowhere, it just—we felt a thud and heard an explosion.” “I was right on the wing, so I looked to my right and I saw the right wing just on fire,” he continued.
A passenger’s perspective from a window seat as the plane rushed along the runway, lit by lights against the night sky, was captured in one TikTok video.
A few seconds later, the passenger’s window flared brilliant orange from the impact, causing startled yelps and growing panic in the background as a horrifying bang tore through the cabin.
One passenger told NBC News, “We immediately came back down, there was fire on the engine, there were lots of sparks that are happening.”
The second before a Frontier Airlines aircraft headed for Los Angeles impacted and killed someone on the runway on Friday night is seen on camera.
A passenger posted a video of the engine catching fire at the precise time of collision on social media, saying it “felt like an explosion.”
In a another video, passengers were seen trying to flee as others were contacting their loved ones and others were shielding their faces from the smoke that filled the plane.
Another passenger, John Athens, told The New York Post, “I thought, “Oh s–t, we’re all going to die,” when the engine blew up.”
“There was just a big explosion, but most people didn’t know what was going on or what happened,” he continued. “Obviously, when you hear a large explosion, people start screaming, children start crying, and it was horrifying.”
“Then the cabin starts to fill up with smoke and that’s when they started evacuating everybody,” Cervantas told The National Desk after the aircraft landed and “swivelled side to side” before shutting down entirely.
Fearful passengers were seen scurrying to get out while exchanging horrified glances in another video that was captured during the mayhem inside the cabin.
While others sought to shield their faces from the smoke that started to fill the little area, others seemed to be phoning loved ones.
The moment we noticed the sparks on the aircraft, smoke filled the entire cabin. Another traveller told NBC, “It was really difficult to breathe.”
Before the evacuation started, passenger Mohamed Hassan told KUSA News that he and the other passengers were stranded aboard the aircraft for roughly three minutes, during which time he claimed to have breathed in “a lot of toxic fumes.”
Videos showed terrified travellers staring at one another with bewilderment.
The aircraft was departing from Denver International Airport with 231 occupants, including 224 passengers and seven crew members.
Social media videos showed travellers using emergency slides to leave the cabin.
A statement from Denver International Airport confirmed that someone “jumped the perimeter fence” close to the runway and was struck at 11:19 p.m., two minutes later.
An unidentified person was killed on the Frontier Airlines aircraft, which had 231 passengers and seven crew members.
US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy wrote to X, “A trespasser breached airport security at Denver International Airport, deliberately scaled a perimeter fence, and ran out onto a runway,” before being hit at “high speed.”
He wrote, “No one should ever trespass on an airport.”According to officials who inspected the barrier, it was undamaged.
According to aviation specialist and safety analyst Greg Feith, the breach is “highly unusual,” as reported by 9News Denver.
“Feith told the newspaper, “The biggest question with this particular event is how this person breached that operational area, getting over a 12-foot fence with razor wire. Were they intoxicated?” Did they suffer from a mental illness? “Was this a deliberate act?” he continued.
The operational side of an airport, particularly an international airport, is rarely breached.
“The operational area that is inside the perimeter fence truly has the same level of security that we all experience as passengers.”
Before the evacuation started, a passenger claimed that he and other passengers were trapped on the aircraft for roughly three minutes, during which time they breathed in “toxic fumes.”
The pilot was heard on air traffic control saying, “Tower, Frontier 4345, we’re stopping on the runway.” We just struck someone, and our engine is burning.
Five were transported to nearby hospitals for treatment after at least 12 people suffered minor injuries.
One of the engines at least half consumed the victim, an official told ABC News.
According to the New York Post, a passenger claimed seeing the “legs of a human” rotate around in the engine while smoke filled the cabin.
Five of the at least twelve individuals who suffered minor injuries on the plane were sent to nearby hospitals for medical attention. After being bussed to the terminal, the remaining passengers boarded a new Frontier flight.
Just minutes before the deadly collision, an air traffic control worker can be heard alerting pilots about a “party walking on the runway” in just made public audio.
We’re stopped on the runway, Tower, Frontier 4345. According to air traffic control recordings, the pilot said, “Uh, we just hit somebody… we have an engine fire.”
He also remembered seeing the person “walking across the runway.”
The worker continued, “I have what looks to be a deceased person on the runway.”
“I do have limbs on the runway,” the air traffic controller can be heard stating in an audio that was first made public by TMZ.
Photos circulating on social media that the Daily Mail has decided not to publish show blood visible in the affected engine of the Airbus A321.
In other videos posted on social media, passengers were seen using emergency slides, which are the common way for everyone on board, including kids, to get out of the cabin.
After arriving on the scene, the Denver Fire Department put out the fire.
The crash is being looked into by Denver Police, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
