Denver International Airport descended into horrific chaos yesterday when a person scaled the perimeter fence and headed towards a runway where a Frontier Airlines plane was taking off at a speed of 139 mph.
It appears the person was sucked into a running jet engine and, as you can probably guess, the results weren’t pretty. This ignited an engine fire, leaving passengers on board afraid for their lives and warranting an emergency evacuation.
Now the communications between the pilots and the tower have been released, underlining that this was a deeply traumatic experience for all involved:
Frontier hit a person walking on the runway on takeoff at Denver tonight. Frontier rejected the takeoff with and engine fire and evacuated everyone on the runway. Absolutely a nightmare scenario. pic.twitter.com/MtSYgrKYL0
— Combat Learjet (@Combat_learjet) May 9, 2026
“We have 231 souls on board, we have two 21,320 pounds of fuel on board, there was an individual walking across the runway. … We’ve got, uh, smoke in the aircraft. We’re gonna evacuate on the runway. “
The tower then confirmed the grisly situation:
“I do have limbs on the runway. I believe the aircraft struck an individual. There appear to be human remains on the runway.”
“Sounds like emotional trauma to me.”
NEW: The man who was struck by a Frontier Airlines jet preparing to take off from Denver International Airport had breached a perimeter fence just two minutes before being hit.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 9, 2026
Video footage shows the chaotic moment when the plane's engine caught fire.
12 people onboard the… pic.twitter.com/zXMDjw7nwy
Eyewitness reports from the passengers indicate that they won’t be forgetting what they saw anytime soon. Nebraska father John Anthens was traveling with his son and told The New York Post his experience:
“When the engine blew up, I thought, ‘Oh s–t, we’re all going to die’. The majority of people didn’t know what was going on or what happened, but there was just a big explosion and, obviously, when you hear a big explosion, people start screaming, kids are crying and it was horrific.”
Anthens was unfortunate enough to be looking out of his window at the engine in question, with his son Jacob describing what he saw:
“My dad said when the engine fire went up, he was able to see the legs of a human spinning around in the engine … which sounds like emotional trauma to me.”
I think you might be onto something there, Jacob.
This incident may seem bizarre, though this is the second time this has happened in the space of a year. Last summer, 35-year-old Andrea Russo ran towards a running jet engine at Milan Bergamo Airport and hurled himself into the turbine blades. The result was much the same as yesterday’s incident in Denver.
You’d assume that airports would have extremely high security preventing random people from getting onto the runway with the intention of throwing themselves into jet engines, but it’s clear they’re not quite as secure as you’d imagine. Maybe they need to raise that perimeter fence a little?
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Published: May 10, 2026 08:40 am