Four people have been injured after a fierce inferno ripped through a packed passenger jet in South Korea – weeks after another aircraft disaster in the country left 179 dead.
Terrifying footage shows flames and smoke billowing from the Airbus at Gimhae International Airport in Busan as passengers scramble to exit the aircraft.
Though there were no casualties reported at first, fire services have confirmed that four passengers sustained non-life-threatening injuries – as they battled to contain the blaze which broke out in the aircraft’s tail today.
The Air Busan plane erupted in flames at around 10.26 pm local time, forcing 169 passengers and seven crew members onboard the Hong Kong-bound flight to be evacuated on an inflatable slide.
Emergency services said that the fire started moments before take off and quickly spread to the fuselage of the aircraft.
While emergency services believe all 176 onboard the craft were rescued, they said they were still searching for people inside the plane ‘just in case’, Yonhap reported.
Firefighters arrived on the scene at 10.34pm and had completely extinguished the fire by 11.31pm.
The plane is an Airbus A321 model, according to FlightRadar23 tracking data.
Plane-maker Airbus said it is aware of reports about the incident and it is liaising with Air Busan.
Budget airline Air Busan is part of Asiana Airlines, which in December was acquired by Korean Air.
The inferno comes a month after South Korea’s deadliest air disaster, when a Jeju Air plane coming back from Bangkok crashed on Muan Airport’s runway as it made an emergency belly landing, killing all but two of the 181 people and crew members on board.
The plane is believed to have experienced a landing gear malfunction during its descent towards Muan International Airport, 180 miles south of Seoul, after taking off from Bangkok on Sunday 29 December.
Dramatic footage broadcast by local MBC-TV also showed the moment the aircraft started to show some sort of explosion out of one side as it neared the airport.
After the crash, Jeju Air chief executive, Kim E-bae offered a lengthy apology that was translated by The Guardian.
‘First, we bow our heads in apology to everyone who has trusted Jeju Air. At approximately 9:03am on 29 December, flight 7C2216 from Bangkok to Muan caught fire while landing at Muan International Airport.
‘Above all, we express our deepest condolences and apologies to the families of the passengers who lost their lives in this accident. At present, the cause of the accident is difficult to determine, and we must await the official investigation results from the relevant government agencies.
It was later reported that the two black boxes on the Boeing jet stopped recording about four minutes before the accident.
The transportation ministry said it was not clear why the devices failed to record data in the last four minutes.
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