Denver airport's Frontier Airlines death highlights major problem for airport bigger than Manhattan, Boston, and Miami
Kiesha Dosanjh
Featured Image Credit: Al Drago/Getty Images
A fatal incident at Denver International Airport has drawn concerns towards the security protocols at the huge airport.
On Friday (May 8) a person sadly died after being struck by a Frontier Airlines aircraft on the runway just before take off. Over 200 passengers on the plane were told to immediately evacuate.
It has been said that the person who died had jumped the perimeter fence, and made their way onto the runway.
After the harrowing ordeal, Denver airport said in a statement to Newsweek: “[The airport] will perform an incident analysis and after action in the coming days which will include reviewing the ongoing investigation, including our perimeter security program.”
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They then added that they were ‘gathering more information in coordination with the airport and other safety facilities’.
However, the challenges of securing an airport which is twice the size of Manhattan, and larger than the city boundaries of Boston have been highlighted.
There are around 36 miles of perimeter fence at Denver airport, with staff undergoing regular inspections.
The airport itself operates on 53 square miles of land, the airport's website states, which is twice the size of Manhattan. The New York borough is roughly 22.8-square-miles.
Not only that, it's ‘larger than the city boundaries of Boston, Miami or San Francisco.’
It’s also the States’ third busiest airport by passengers, and airports including ‘Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, Chicago O’Hare, Los Angeles International and Dallas Fort Worth’ could jointly fit into DEN’s property.
However, this comes with setbacks, according to one expert.
“The more expansive the land area of an airport, the more perimeter to defend, the more remote areas, and the more complex terrain, all of which provide more opportunities for unauthorized entry,” William Rankin, an adjunct professor at Florida Institute of Technology specialising in researching airport management and safety told CNN.
However, Rankin stressed to the publication that pedestrian incursions, and the event on Friday are ‘extremely rare’.
He also said the incident ‘shouldn't make citizens lose confidence in the security of major US airports.’
It's not the first time someone has breached the perimeter fence at the airport. Between the years of 2004 - 2015, the airport had seen eight breaches, an investigation by The Associated Press revealed.
A spokeswoman for the airport at the time said: “We believe many folks do not realize they are even on airport property — it looks like farmland and a breach may be miles and miles away from a runway or the terminal."