Frontier Airlines flight 4353 never left the ground after colliding with a person on the runway at Denver International Airport, but the pilot’s split-second decision to abort takeoff saved all 231 lives on board. The Los Angeles-bound Airbus A321 was accelerating down the runway at nearly 140 mph on the evening of May 8 when it struck an individual who had jumped the airport’s perimeter fence just two minutes earlier.
According to the BBC, passengers described a terrifying scene of smoke filling the cabin and an engine fire that was quickly extinguished by emergency crews, but the quick actions of the flight crew prevented what could have been a catastrophic disaster. Chloe Kuns, a 30-year-old middle school teacher from Michigan, was on board with her one-year-old daughter in her lap when the plane experienced what she called a “big impact” during takeoff.
