How the Frontier flight could safely stop after person walked on runway

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]We got inside a flight simulator to understand what the Frontier pilots faced Friday night at DIA when a trespasser walked in front of the plane during takeoff. That person was hit and the engine caught fire. The plane was able to safely stop because it happened at about 146 miles per hour, which according to the simulator instructor we talked with was still slow enough for the plane to stop without running out of runway. Our rejection speed's 140 knots.

[00:00:26]So, if anything happens before then, we're just going to bring the throttle back to zero and have the plane stop itself. If the plane was already going about 161 miles per hour, the pilots would have been safer to take off, fly briefly on one engine, and come back for an emergency landing. There might not have been enough runway to slow down and stop. But, according to our instructor, the most dangerous moment was not the engine fire. It was the evacuation.

[00:00:51]That's when injuries happen. Inpatient passengers, people grabbing their bags.

[00:00:55]Leave your bag. Don't take it. Leave it.