NTSB investigates evacuation of L.A.-bound plane that hit pedestrian at Denver airport

The National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday it is gathering information about the evacuation of a Frontier Airlines plane bound for Los Angeles after it hit and killed a person on the runway at Denver International Airport during takeoff.

The jetliner carrying 224 passengers and seven crew members en route to LAX reported striking a pedestrian during takeoff late Friday night.

Passengers on the plane, which Frontier identified as Flight 4345, were evacuated via slides, and the emergency crew bused them to the terminal. An airport spokesperson said 12 passengers suffered minor injuries and five were taken to hospitals.

Concerns about evacuation

Some people on board expressed concern about the evacuation, including being stuck in the plane for several minutes as smoke filled the cabin and being left on the tarmac in the cold once they were out. Video also showed some passengers coming down the slide with what appeared to be their carry-on bags.

“We are gathering information about the emergency evacuation to determine if it meets criteria for a safety investigation,” NTSB spokesperson Sarah Taylor Sulick said Sunday.

Frontier Airlines did not respond Sunday to a request for information about the evacuation.

Unanswered questions

A spokesman for the Denver Police Department said Sunday that the investigation into the incident was ongoing and that the identity of the person on the runway will be confirmed and released by the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner.

The chief executive of the Denver airport, Phil Washington, 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,” Washington said in a statement. “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.”

Two minutes after jumping a fence, the person crossed the runway and was hit. The airport said it does not believe the person was an airport employee, but it has not released additional details.

Pilot alerts control tower

“We’re stopping on the runway,” the pilot told the control tower, according to the site ATC.com. “We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire.”

The pilot told the air traffic controller that the plane had “231 souls” aboard and that an “individual was walking across the runway.”

The air traffic controller responded that airport workers were “rolling the trucks now,” before the pilot told the tower there was “smoke in the aircraft,” adding: “We are going to evacuate on the runway.”

Frontier Airlines said in a statement that “smoke was reported in the cabin and the pilots aborted takeoff.” It was not clear whether the smoke was linked to the collision.

“We are investigating this incident and gathering more information in coordination with the airport and other safety authorities,” the airline said.

‘It was chaos everywhere’

Passengers said panic took hold on the flight after an engine caught fire and the cabin began filling with smoke.

“Honestly, I thought I was going to die,” passenger Mohamed Hassan told Colorado’s 9NEWS.

“A lot of people next to me were screaming and crying. I just closed my eyes,” he said. “At that time, you’re not really thinking of anything, you know? Because we were just about to take off and I heard that boom, so I wasn’t sure what happened. I just thought something really, really bad happened.”

Passenger Nikil Thalanki told local media outlets that he felt “this jerk” as the plane was about to take off, adding that it felt like the wheels had left the ground but then came back down.

“There was fire on the engine. There was lots of sparks that are happening. Immediately came to a stop,” Thalanki said. “As soon as we saw the sparks on the flight, smoke filled the cabin completely. It was super hard to breathe.”

Kimberly Randle said passengers were panicking and desperate to get off the aircraft.

“In a few minutes, they finally opened the door. People were running to get out of the plane,” he said. “It was chaos everywhere.”

Evacuations on NTSB radar

The NTSB has for years expressed concerned about evacuations, especially passengers leaving with their carry-ons. In an April report on the evacuation aboard a United Airlines flight last year at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, the NTSB described a troubling scene.

Passengers were evacuated via slides and stairs from the jetliner after an engine problem during takeoff caused smoke and fire on the right wing.

The flight attendant told passengers to remain seated, but several began shouting, “Fire on the engine, let me get out!” That triggered “widespread panic” and prompted many passengers to get up and start retrieving their belongings, the report said. Some climbed over seats and began obstructing the aisle.

Three large men insisted the evacuation occur, pushing past a flight attendant and going down a slide before it had fully deployed — causing it to deflate and become unusable.

“Cabin crew training emphasizes assertive command presence and passenger control during evacuations; however, this event demonstrates how rapidly escalating passenger behavior can affect evacuation dynamics even in the absence of confirmed fire or smoke conditions,” according to the report.

The incident in Denver came a day after a Delta Air Lines employee was killed while on the job at the Orlando International Airport in Florida. In a statement, the airline said the employee was killed Thursday night without providing details of the incident or the name of the employee.

Casey writes for the Associated Press.