The horror words in the cockpit after the death mystery

Johan Edgar

Published 2026-05-09 23.06

 

Chaos broke out and twelve passengers were injured.

Flight 4345 was about to take off for Los Angeles with 231 people on board.

Then chaos broke out.

– People were screaming, children were crying and it was terrible, says a witness.

The conversation between the pilot and the control tower reveals the horror on the runway.

Quick version

• A man entered the runway at Denver Airport and was run over by a Frontier Airlines plane, causing an engine fire and the evacuation of 223 passengers.
• The man, who is described as an intruder and not an airport employee, is believed to have climbed over a fence to get into the area and no one knows the identity or motive behind the act.
• Twelve passengers were slightly injured during the evacuation and both the NTSB and the FAA have opened investigations, while this is the third strange airport accident in the United States in a short time.

The fatal crash and fire at the Denver airport are a mystery.

Suddenly, a person stood in the middle of the road as the Airbus A321 plane from Frontier Airlines began to accelerate along runway 17L to take off for Los Angeles.

No one knows who the person is - and why he went onto the runway.

The engine caught fire

It was then 11:19 p.m. local time late Friday night.

The collision was violent, as radio traffic from the cockpit testifies.

- We're stopping on the runway. We just hit someone, the pilot told the tower according to the conversation posted on atc.com.

- We have an engine fire.

Smoke from the fire entered the cabin and the 223 passengers were evacuated from the plane on inflatable emergency slides.

 

The passengers were evacuated from the plane after the collision that caused an engine fire. Photo: Jack Estenssoro Via AP

The words of horror over the radio

There were also seven crew members on board.

The passengers were evacuated to eerie scenes on the runway.

The radio traffic between the pilots in the cockpit and the control tower shows the drama that unfolded.

– We have body parts on the runway. I assume the plane hit a person, says a person at the airport over the radio.

– There appear to be remains on the runway.

          

          “People were screaming, children were crying and it was terrible,” says a witness. Photo: Jack                    Estenssoro Via AP

The unidentified person reportedly jumped a fence and entered the airport area.

According to the New York Post, the person was partially sucked into the engine in the crash. This triggered the fire that made many passengers fear for their lives.

The son about his father's trauma

- When the engine blew up, I thought, "Oh my god, we're all going to die," passenger John Anthens, 56, told the newspaper.

- Most of the people on board didn't know what was going on or what had happened, but it was a big explosion and, of course, when you hear a big explosion, there were people screaming, children crying and everything was terrible.

Anthens, who was traveling to Los Angeles with his sons for a Pokémon Go tournament, saw everything through the cabin window.

- Dad said that when the fire broke out in the engine, he saw a pair of legs spinning around in it. He has b

een through emotional trauma, his son Jacob told the New York Post.

Twelve passengers injured

The Airbus plane had been traveling at 140 miles per hour when it ran over the person on the runway.

The deceased was not an airport employee, according to a statement from the airport.

In a post on X, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy described the person as an “intruder.”

“Late last night, an intruder broke through security at Denver International Airport, deliberately climbed over a fence surrounding the area and ran onto a runway,” Duffy wrote on Saturday.

Twelve people suffered minor injuries during the evacuation, and five of them were taken to the hospital.

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have opened investigations into the fatal accident.

 

The National Transportation Safety Board will now investigate the accident. Photo: David Zalubowski/AP

Several strange accidents

“We are investigating the incident and are gathering information in cooperation with the airport and other authorities. We are deeply shocked by what has happened,” a spokesperson for Frontier Airlines said, according to the New York Post.

The incident is the third strange accident at US airports in just a few days, writes The Guardian.

On Thursday evening, a Delta employee died when a vehicle at Orlando airport crashed into a passenger bridge between the terminal and a parked aircraft.

On May 3, a United Airlines plane on its way to land at Newark airport collided with a delivery van and a lamppost, which in turn hit a passenger car.

Only the delivery driver was injured and the plane managed to land.