WARNING: Graphic details
Passengers on board a plane that struck and killed a pedestrian who was sucked into its engine have described the harrowing incident, saying they thought they were going to die.
John Anthens, 56, was on board with his two sons headed for a Pokémon Go competition in Los Angles when the tragedy unfolded.
A person had jumped a fence and was on the runway at Denver International Airport when, two minutes later, he was struck and killed by a Frontier Airlines plane during takeoff, with the collision sparking an engine fire that forced passengers to evacuate.
“When the engine blew up, I thought, ‘oh sh-t, we’re all going to die,” Mr Anthens old New York Post.
He said he felt the nose of the plane tip up before what sounded like a bomb.
“When the engine blew up, I thought, ‘oh sh-t, we’re all going to die.”
Jacob Anthens, 30, said his father was looking out the window at the time and witnessed what happened.
“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,” Jacob said.
Thick black smoke filled the cabin as cabin crew told passengers to stay in their seats.
“I would say the majority of people didn’t know what was going on or what happened, but there was just a big explosion, and obviously, you hear a big explosion, people start screaming, kids are crying, and it was horrific,” John Anthens said.
Passengers were eventually evacuated from the plane via the emergency slide, witnessing the bloody scene of the engine and pausing to take photos and video as they walked away.
The pilot’s radio messages during the gruesome incident have been released.
“We’re stopping on the runway,” the pilot tells the control tower according to the site ATC.com.
“We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire.”
The pilot tells the air traffic controller they have “231 souls” on board and that an “individual was walking across the runway”.
The air traffic controller responds that they are “rolling the trucks now” before the pilot tells the tower they “have smoke in the aircraft. We are going to evacuate on the runway”.
Frontier Airlines said in a statement that flight 4345 was the one involved in the collision and that “smoke was reported in the cabin and the pilots aborted takeoff”. It was not clear whether the smoke was linked to the collision.
The airline said the plane was carrying 224 passengers and seven crew members.
“We are investigating this incident and gathering more information in coordination with the airport and other safety authorities,” the airline said.
Passengers were evacuated via slides and the emergency crew bused them to the terminal. The airport spokesperson said 12 passengers suffered minor injuries and five were taken to hospitals.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the person “breached airport security at Denver Int’l Airport, deliberately scaled a perimeter fence, and ran out onto a runway.”
He added: “No one should EVER trespass on an airport.”
— with AP
