A person who scaled a perimeter fence at Denver International Airport was struck and killed by a Frontier Airlines jet during takeoff Saturday night, and newly released security footage from the City and County of Denver captures the fatal moment on the runway.

The individual hopped the fence and reached the active runway in roughly two minutes, according to the New York Post. At 11:19 p.m., the Airbus A321neo operating Frontier Flight 4345 from Denver to Los Angeles was accelerating for takeoff when it hit the trespasser at 139 miles per hour, per data from FlightAware.

The person was at least partially sucked into one of the aircraft's engines. The engine burst into flames. And 231 people on board, 224 passengers and seven crew members, were left to evacuate on the runway in the dark.

Two minutes from fence to runway

The security video shows the individual walking calmly across the runway before impact. No motive has been disclosed. Investigators have not publicly identified the person.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy addressed the breach on X, writing that the "trespasser breached security" at Denver International Airport, "deliberately scaled a perimeter fence, and ran out onto a runway." Fox News reported that Duffy added the trespasser "was then struck by Frontier Airlines Flight 4345 during takeoff at high speed. The pilot stopped takeoff procedures immediately."

Duffy was blunt about the stakes: "No one should EVER trespass on an airport."

That a person could breach the perimeter of one of the nation's busiest airports and reach an active runway within two minutes raises questions that the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration, both now investigating, will need to answer. How was the breach not detected faster? Was there any alert to the cockpit or tower before impact? The fact pack, so far, offers no answers.

Pilot audio captures the collision

Air traffic control recordings paint a grim picture. The pilot radioed the tower immediately after the strike, as Breitbart reported from the ATC audio:

"Tower, Frontier 4345, we're stopping on the runway. Uh, we just hit somebody... we have an engine fire."

The pilot also told controllers: "There was an individual walking across the runway."

Moments later, the crew reported smoke filling the cabin and made the call to evacuate. A second transmission captured by the tower audio confirmed the decision:

"We have smoke in the aircraft. We are going to evacuate on the runway."

Passengers deployed down emergency inflatable slides in the aftermath. Airport officials told reporters that 12 passengers suffered minor injuries during the evacuation. Five were taken to hospitals, AP News reported.

Passenger saw the impact from his window seat

John Anthens, a passenger traveling with his sons, was looking out the window when the plane hit the trespasser. What he described was harrowing. Anthens told the Post he saw "the legs of a human spinning around in the engine."

The cabin, Anthens said, descended into chaos:

"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' son John stopped at the bottom of the inflatable evacuation slide and took a photograph of the damaged engine. The family canceled their trip and drove more than 300 miles back to their home in Nebraska.

The incident is a reminder that airport perimeter security is not an abstract concern. In recent years, Congress has struggled to pass even basic aviation safety upgrades, including a bill requiring aircraft locator systems that was killed in the House a year after the deadly Potomac River collision.

Investigations open, answers scarce

The NTSB said it is gathering information about both the runway strike and the evacuation itself to determine whether the evacuation meets the criteria for a separate safety investigation, Newsmax reported. That the board is weighing a second inquiry, into how passengers escaped the aircraft, signals the severity of what happened after the collision, not just during it.

The FAA is also investigating. Neither agency has released preliminary findings.

Several basic questions remain open. Who was the person on the runway? What drove them to jump the fence? Did any surveillance system or alarm trigger between the moment of the breach and the moment of impact? And why did roughly 120 seconds pass, an eternity in airport operations, without the incursion being stopped?

Denver International Airport confirmed the person had jumped the perimeter fence and was on the tarmac when struck. Beyond that, airport officials have offered little detail about how their security systems performed that night.

Frontier Airlines identified the aircraft as Flight 4345 bound for Los Angeles. The airline has not publicly commented on whether the crew received any warning before the collision.

Perimeter breaches at major airports are not as rare as the flying public might hope. Security around airfields depends on fencing, cameras, motion sensors, and rapid response, a chain only as strong as its weakest link. When a person can clear a fence and walk onto an active runway in two minutes flat, something in that chain failed.

The broader aviation safety landscape has seen its share of alarming incidents near airports and in controlled airspace. Separately, F-16s were scrambled after a civilian aircraft violated a flight restriction near Air Force One, another case where a security perimeter was tested and found wanting.

A security failure with fatal consequences

What happened at Denver International Airport on Saturday night was not a freak accident that no one could have foreseen. Airports exist inside security perimeters for precisely this reason. Fences, sensors, and protocols are supposed to keep unauthorized people off runways where aircraft accelerate to nearly 140 miles per hour.

The trespasser is dead. Twelve passengers were injured. A planeload of families, including a father who watched a human body get pulled into a jet engine, will carry that night with them for the rest of their lives.

Airport security incidents have drawn increased attention in recent months. A pressure cooker found near Tampa's airport prompted a bomb squad response, and law enforcement has dealt with serious criminal cases at LAX as well. The common thread is that airports remain high-value targets and high-consequence environments where lapses carry an outsized cost.

Secretary Duffy is right that no one should ever trespass on an airport. But the harder question is why it was so easy.