Frightening footage has emerged of passengers hastily evacuating a Frontier Airlines aircraft after it collided with an apparent trespasser at Denver Airport, causing smoke to billow through the cabin.
Despite warnings to leave their belongings behind, passengers scrambled to exit the smoke-filled cabin on Friday night following an engine fire.
One video captured the moment the Los Angeles-bound Airbus A321neo sped down the runway at nearly 140 mph, followed by a sudden orange flash and sparks erupting from one of its engines.
In the chaos, passengers disregarded instructions to leave their luggage as they hurried out of the dim and smoky cabin, with one passenger shouting, “Fire on the engine, let me out.”
“The cabin was completely filled with smoke—it was really hard to breathe,” Nikil Thalanki reported to KUSA.
He added, “We were told to stay seated for what felt like two, maybe three or four minutes, and then the exits were opened for evacuation.”
One stewardess even shouted, “Please leave all belongings, your belongings are safe, your lives are more important.”
Passengers were told to “stay low and jump” as they approached the inflatable slides.
“Holy s–t, we almost died,” one passenger said in one social media clip they looked at the stationary plane.
“That is f–king crazy.”
Some passengers were seen taking in the extent of the damage to the plane’s engine following the explosion.
Mohamed Hassan, who was also on the plane, told KUSA it was the “scariest experience of my life.”
“I was on the flight, and I looked to my right and I just saw a fire, I heard a loud boom, people started screaming. I thought I was going to die,” he said.
New security video released by the City and County of Denver shows the moment the person was struck while walking on the runway.
The victim can be seen walking from one end to the other with little urgency. They appeared to be perfectly aligned with one of the plane’s engines when part of their upper body was sucked inside.
The collision occurred roughly two minutes after the individual hopped the fence, KHOU 11 reported. The plane was moving at 139 mph at the time of the crash, according to FlightAware.
The pilot told air traffic controllers, “We’re stopping on the runway,” just moments after the collision.
“We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire.”
The pilot said an “individual was walking across the runway” before the air traffic controller responds they’re “rolling the trucks.”
The pilot then tells air traffic controllers they “have smoke in the aircraft. We are going to evacuate on the runway.”
All 224 passengers and seven crew members were safely evacuated from the plane.
Phil Washington, the Denver Airport CEO, said he “knows” there are questions still to be answered.
“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,” he said.
“This was a horrible and preventable tragedy that has affected many due to the actions of one person who apparently trespassed at an airport and lost their life as a result.”
With Post wires.
