Denver Airport CEO Defends Security After Man Scales Fence to Runway

The fence is eight feet high. It’s topped with barbed wire. On paper, it’s a formidable barrier at an airport that covers 5,300 acres — twice the size of Manhattan. In practice, a 41-year-old man scaled it in 15 seconds.

He slipped past motion detectors in a remote corner of Denver International Airport (DIA). He walked onto the runway. And he stepped into the path of a Frontier Airlines jetliner hurtling down the tarmac at 150 miles per hour.

The result was a fatality and a near-miss for 231 people.

The man, identified by the medical examiner as having died from his injuries, was fatally struck by the aircraft as it attempted to take off late Friday night. Surveillance video captured the moment: the jetliner’s engine ingested him, the engine instantly burst into flames, and the pilot was forced to abort the takeoff. The plane evacuated 224 passengers and seven crew members. Twelve people sustained minor injuries.

This wasn’t a breach of the entire security apparatus. It was a gap in a specific, overlooked section.

Aviation and risk experts are calling it a clear security failure. Eric Chaffee, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University who specializes in aviation risk, noted that while the outcome was tragic for the intruder, the risk to the 231 people aboard was unprecedented.

“The individual ended up with a bad result. But having somebody basically damage a plane is really quite concerning because of all those lives aboard any given aircraft,” Chaffee said. “There ought to be new measures put into place to prevent this type of tragedy.”

But let’s look at the cost-benefit analysis. Some experts argue that installing blanket surveillance or impregnable defenses across all 5,300 acres is cost-prohibitive for an event that happens roughly once every few years. The Denver airport CEO, Phillip Washington, defended the current perimeter security program during a news conference on Tuesday. He pointed out that the airport received “perfect scores” following federal inspections of airfield safety and perimeter integrity.

Those scores are based on Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspections. Over the past decade, those inspections found only two discrepancies. One was a response vehicle that got delayed 20 seconds during an aircraft rescue firefighting drill. The other was a driver issue.

Two discrepancies. Perfect scores.

The medical examiner ruled the intruder’s death a suicide. The FAA is now reviewing the protocols. But for the folks who fly out of DIA every day, the question isn’t just whether the fence held up. It’s whether the “perfect score” actually reflects the reality of a man who walked unobstructed onto a active runway.

The airport promised a review of its protocols. They said the perimeter is secure. The data says it is, mostly. But 15 seconds is all it took to break the seal.