DENVER — Another person has breached Denver International Airport and walked onto the active airfield five months after a similar breach ended with a man being struck and killed by a departing plane.
DIA officials confirmed a person trespassed on the north side of the airfield around 2:30 p.m. on Saturday. Airport officials said Denver police detained the person and transported them to a hospital.
Airport radio traffic during the incident details a subject that had appeared to jump the perimeter fence.
Watch Maggie Bryan's report in the video player below:
The latest security breach at the airport comes after a deadly runway collision involving 41-year-old Michael Mott, whose death was ruled a suicide by medical examiners. DIA CEO Phil Washington said Mott jumped an 8-foot fence topped with barbed wire, walked out onto a runway and was struck by a departing plane.
Denver7 reached out to airport officials to ask whether DIA has added or improved any security measures following the deadly runway incident in May. A DIA spokesperson did not directly answer the question, instead saying DIA has a multi-layered approach to security but cannot talk about protocols publicly.
Annmarie Heth, an assistant professor of aviation and aerospace sciences at Metropolitan State University of Denver, said the airport's scale makes its perimeter one of the most challenging in the country to protect.
"Securing an airport the size of DEN is a tremendous undertaking as it is the largest commercial airport in the United States by land size. We're talking about an airport that covers more than 53 square miles," she said. "The larger the perimeter, the more difficult it becomes to monitor every section. Airports have to deal with remote areas, limited visibility, wildlife and people who may intentionally try to gain access. That's why airports rely on multiple layers of security rather than just a fence."
In a lawsuit filed last month, attorneys for passengers on the deadly Frontier flight claim airport staff missed a chance to prevent the crash, alleging an alarm sounded when the breach happened, but no one stopped runway traffic or warned air traffic control.
"It exposes a weakness at a very large and important airport, where apparently somebody can just go over the fence while watched by cameras, by thermal infrared cameras, and can walk into an airplane," said Joseph LoRusso, the director of aviation at Ramos Law.
Washington said motion detectors on the fence identified a herd of deer just outside the fence in the same area, which initially caused security crews to miss the man jumping the fence.
The lawsuit details half a dozen other breaches at the airport over the last few years, including multiple other fence jumpers and a man who crashed his car through an airport security gate in May.
In a previous interview with Denver7, aviation security expert Jeff Price said perimeter fencing is not meant to make breaches impossible, but to buy staff time to react.
"It's really there to be a delaying action, a deterrence action, to allow the airport and other personnel to respond if somebody tries to get on the airfield, and then the other reason it's there, and the irony of the situation is to keep people from inadvertently walking onto the airfield from a safety perspective," Price said.
Heth said no security system can guarantee a breach will never happen.
"No security system is 100% foolproof. Someone determined to get over or through a fence may find a way. The important thing is how quickly the intrusion is detected and how effectively airport personnel respond. Preventing someone from reaching an active runway or taxiway is critical," Heth said.
Denver7 has asked DIA and Denver police about the identity of the person at the center of Saturday's incident and how long they were on the airfield after jumping the fence. We will update this article when we hear back.
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