An American Airways flight heading from Colorado Springs to Dallas-Fort Price was compelled to divert about half-hour after take-off to make an emergency touchdown at Denver on Thursday night, whereupon one of many airplane’s engines dramatically caught on fireplace on the tarmac.
Passengers had been swiftly compelled to evacuate, together with by way of wing and emergency slide, and might be seen operating for security by way of thick smoke with flames behind them.
The 172 passengers and 6 crew on board all survived though 12 folks had been taken to hospital with minor accidents.
On Friday morning the Nationwide Transportation Security Board (NTSB) mentioned it would examine the incident.
Movies of passengers standing on the wing of the airplane as smoke poured out of the engine had been posted on social media. American Airways mentioned the airplane had landed safely when it skilled an “engine-related difficulty”.
The flight made an emergency touchdown after reporting alarming engine vibration. The airplane caught on fireplace whereas taxing to the gate simply earlier than 6pm native time, 8pm ET on 13 March.
“American Airways Flight 1006 diverted to and landed safely at Denver Worldwide Airport round 5.15pm native time on Thursday, March 13, after the crew reported engine vibrations,” the Federal Aviation Administration mentioned in a assertion. “After touchdown and whereas taxiing to the gate an engine caught fireplace and passengers evacuated the plane utilizing the slides.”
Movies present flames coming from the airplane and passengers evacuating the plane by climbing onto a wing.
A alternative plane and crew was supplied to move the remaining passengers to Dallas within the early hours of Friday.
“We thank our crew members, DEN workforce and first responders for his or her fast and decisive motion with the security of everybody on board and on the bottom because the precedence,” American Airways mentioned in a assertion.
A passenger on the airplane, Gabrielle Hibbitts, advised CBS Information Colorado: “As quickly because the airplane landed, we smelled this bizarre burning plastic odor after which all people began screaming and saying there was a hearth.”
The FAA mentioned it would examine the incident, which comes amid a sequence of aviation points because the 29 January midair collision of a industrial flight and a army helicopter on the outskirts of Washington, DC that killed 67 folks as each plane plunged into the Potomac River.
Different current incidents involving US flights embody a Delta Air Traces airplane that crashed and flipped over whereas touchdown in Toronto final month, a close to miss in late February between a Southwest Airways flight and a non-public jet in Chicago, and a Japan Airways airplane clipping the wing of a Delta airplane with passengers on it awaiting de-icing at Seattle-Tacoma Worldwide Airport on 6 February.
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