May 15, 2026 · 1 hr 16 min · 18 segments
On this week’s episode of AvTalk, we’re joined by Nomadic Aviation Group co-founder Steve Giordano to talk about what happens when you suddenly need to move dozens of aircraft in a very short amount…
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Ian PetchenikHost
Jason RabinowitzHost
But first, we turn our attention to Denver, where over the weekend, a Frontier Airlines A321neo struck a person on the runway.
We've since learned that that person scaled a perimeter fence at the airport and intentionally walked onto the runway.
Though it did cause an engine fire, the pilots rejected the takeoff, were able to stop the aircraft on the runway.
Because of that engine fire and damage to the aircraft, smoke filled the cabin, so they elected to evacuate the aircraft on the runway.
This raises all sorts of questions about how that person got there and what's going on in Denver.
The airport chief led a press conference earlier this week saying that ground detectors were set off by the fence that that person scaled.
But a nearby herd of deer were initially thought to be responsible, and because of the terrain in that area near the fence, the person was not necessarily visible entirely.
And then, because the deer were there, the automated cameras kept jumping between that person and the deer.
So then, the person w- was sighted, but that area of the airport, Runway 17 Left, is so remote that it would've been impossible to get people out there quickly enough to deal with this before that person made their way onto the runway.
If you're not familiar with Denver Airport, it is the size of a city, basically.
It is 33,531 acres, according to Wikipedia, which is 52.4 square kilometers, or 135.7 square kilometers, which, which is just, uh, absolutely massive.
In North America, and the second-largest airport by area in the world, second only to Dammam in Saudi Arabia.
... entire ecosystems and nature, uh, I, I guess you could say, ecosystems too, inside that airport.
It is a massive area to not just keep control of everything inside, but keep unwanted things out.
And, uh, as high-tech as your intrusion detection systems are going to be, it's never going to stop everything, and it's never going to detect everything over that amount of space.
But first, we turn our attention to Denver, where over the weekend, a Frontier Airlines A321neo struck a person on the runway.
We've since learned that that person scaled a perimeter fence at the airport and intentionally walked onto the runway.
Though it did cause an engine fire, the pilots rejected the takeoff, were able to stop the aircraft on the runway.
Because of that engine fire and damage to the aircraft, smoke filled the cabin, so they elected to evacuate the aircraft on the runway.
This raises all sorts of questions about how that person got there and what's going on in Denver.
The airport chief led a press conference earlier this week saying that ground detectors were set off by the fence that that person scaled.
But a nearby herd of deer were initially thought to be responsible, and because of the terrain in that area near the fence, the person was not necessarily visible entirely.
And then, because the deer were there, the automated cameras kept jumping between that person and the deer.
So then, the person w- was sighted, but that area of the airport, Runway 17 Left, is so remote that it would've been impossible to get people out there quickly enough to deal with this before that person made their way onto the runway.
If you're not familiar with Denver Airport, it is the size of a city, basically.
It is 33,531 acres, according to Wikipedia, which is 52.4 square kilometers, or 135.7 square kilometers, which, which is just, uh, absolutely massive.
In North America, and the second-largest airport by area in the world, second only to Dammam in Saudi Arabia.
... entire ecosystems and nature, uh, I, I guess you could say, ecosystems too, inside that airport.
It is a massive area to not just keep control of everything inside, but keep unwanted things out.
And, uh, as high-tech as your intrusion detection systems are going to be, it's never going to stop everything, and it's never going to detect everything over that amount of space.
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