Chinese jet aborts takeoff, catches fire, causing minor injuries from evacuation
BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s Tibet Airways mentioned all passengers and crew had been evacuated from an Airbus A319 airplane that caught fireplace after an aborted takeoff within the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing on Thursday.
There have been no deaths and solely minor accidents among the many 113 passengers and 9 crew members on board, the airline mentioned in an announcement.
Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) mentioned 36 folks suffered bruises and sprains throughout the evacuation of flight TV9833 and have been despatched to native hospitals for examination.
The pilots had interrupted the takeoff consistent with procedures after experiencing an abnormality, CAAC mentioned in an announcement, resulting in an engine scrape and fireplace after the airplane veered off the runway.
Emergency plans have been activated and investigators rushed to the scene, the aviation regulator added.
The incident got here lower than two months after the lethal crash of a China Japanese Airways airplane led CAAC to launch sector-wide inspections to search out potential security lapses.
Unverified video on social media confirmed a Tibet Airways airplane, a subsidiary of Air China, with heavy smoke and flames pouring from the left aspect of the plane as passengers and crew ran away.
Chongqing Jiangbei Worldwide Airport mentioned the plane caught fireplace at 8:09 a.m. native time (0009 GMT).
A passenger recognized as Mr A in Chinese language media mentioned there was a sudden vibration and oxygen masks lowered earlier than the airplane made an uncommon sound and veered off the runway.
Crew members seen that gasoline oil was leaking and began evacuating passengers down slides, Mr A mentioned. Fireplace quickly broke out, forcing some passengers together with himself to leap from the plane, he mentioned, including that he had injured his again and legs.
Unverified images on social media present each engines separated from the airframe in addition to a serious crack within the rear fuselage and injury to the appropriate wing.
The airplane concerned is a nine-year-old A319, one of many smallest variations of the A320 household. It’s powered by CFM56 engines from CFM Worldwide, a three way partnership between Normal Electrical and Safran, based on Airfleets.internet.
Airbus mentioned it was conscious of media studies in regards to the incident and was making all efforts to evaluate the scenario.
Tibet Airways is a regional airline primarily based in Lhasa. It has a fleet of 39 planes, together with 28 A319s, based on Airfleets.internet.
On March 21, a China Japanese Airways Boeing 737-800 with 132 folks on board crashed in mountains in southern China, killing everybody on board. To this point there have been few clues about the reason for the accident.
The tragedy shocked a rustic which had vastly improved its security file to turn out to be the most effective on this planet. Previous to the COVID-19 pandemic, China was one of many world’s quickest rising markets for aviation, measured by passenger visitors, throughout the previous decade.
(Reporting by Stella Qiu in Beijing and Jamie Freed in Sydney; Enhancing by Lincoln Feast, Jacqueline Wong & Simon Cameron-Moore)
