Frontier flight evacuated at Denver airport after gun magazine found aboard

A gun magazine found aboard a Frontier Airlines jet at Denver International Airport forced passengers and crew off the plane Sunday night, exposing another weak point in the airport’s security chain just days after a separate Frontier disruption at the same airport.

Frontier Flight 4765 was scheduled to leave Denver for Phoenix, Arizona, around 8 p.m. MDT Sunday. Instead, everyone on board was deplaned and rescreened, and the aircraft was swept for threats. Officials found no additional danger, and no injuries were reported. Airport spokespeople said the passengers were bussed to another location while the security response played out.

What remains unclear is the most important question in the case: where the magazine came from, how it got onto the aircraft, and whether any passenger physically had it on them. A TSA union spokesperson told Denver7 that the discovery pointed to a breakdown in screening, saying, “Finding a magazine on a plane means we missed it. Not good.”

The disruption did not end at the gate. Because the delay pushed the crew past its duty time, Frontier could not simply reload the plane and depart. The airline rescheduled the trip for early Monday morning, and the flight eventually left Denver at about 6 a.m. MDT Monday, arriving in Phoenix around 6:50 a.m. MST.

One passenger, Rashon Hammonds, said the response left travelers waiting without clear instructions after police escorted them back to TSA screening. He said Frontier later told passengers the flight was canceled and that they would not be reboarded until the next morning. Hammonds said some passengers sought refunds and that he received a $15 voucher.

The Denver incident added to a troubling stretch for Frontier at the airport. It came only days after another Frontier flight at Denver International Airport was evacuated after striking and killing a person who had jumped a perimeter fence and entered the runway area late Friday night. Together, the two episodes underscored how quickly routine airport operations can unravel when security barriers fail, whether in the terminal, on the ramp or around the runway itself.