Another serious aviation accident happened in South Korea yesterday evening as an Air Busan Airbus A321 aircraft caught fire while ready to depart from South Korea’s city of Busan to Hong Kong, forcing an emergency evacuation.
The 169 passengers and seven crew all got off the aircraft safely without any casualties or serious injuries reported, while the hull of the plane was obviously a total loss.
Contrary to the very recent Jeju Air accident with serious loss of life, this incident ended without anyone falling victim or being seriously hurt, although seven people incurred minor injuries as so often during evacuations.
The situation occurred last night as Air Busan Flight 391 was scheduled to depart from Busan’s Gimhae International Airport for Hong Kong. Shortly before takeoff, the aircraft caught fire, resulting in 7 injuries and the evacuation of all 176 people on board.
As reported by BBC, this was a disaster just narrowly averted:
An Airbus plane has caught fire at an airport of South Korea’s city of Busan, forcing the evacuation of all 176 people on board, fire authorities say.
They say four people were injured as they were escaping the Air Busan aircraft on inflatable slides in the south-eastern airport on Tuesday evening.
The blaze is said to have started at the tail of the Hong Kong-bound plane shortly before take-off. Firefighters – who arrived within minutes – were seen trying to put out the fire that spread to the fuselage.
This comes less than a month after the worst air disaster on South Korean soil when a Jeju Air plane crash-landed in the south-western Muan airport, killing 179 people. Two people survived.
The fire on board the Air Busan plane Gimhae International Airport began at about 22:26 local time (13:26 GMT) on Tuesday, Yonhap news agency said, citing South Korea’s fire authorities.
It said that firefighters arrived at the scene eight minutes later.
Photos later emerged showing the burning aircraft being doused with water.
There were 169 passengers and seven crew on board the plane.
The cause of the fire is being investigated.
Extremely scary and serious. This comes just one month after the deadly Jeju Air crash that devastated families during Christmas and traumatized the country.
Here is a YouTube clip from KOREA NOW:
And another one from Arirang News:
As mentioned in these news reports, this could have been MUCH worse had the flight already taken off, being in motion or if there was even the slightest hiccup during the evacuation.
Fire in such an environment is extremely dangerous because often it’s not the flames that get you first, it’s the smoke.
The plane was an Airbus A321 with the registration HL7763. This fire was the first accident involving Air Busan since 2013. The airline is usually well regarded and a low cost subsidiary of Asiana Airlines.
An investigation is currently underway to determine the cause of this accident.
Just two days ago, Korean Air Safety officials determined a bird strike as the official cause for the Jeju Air crash, which claimed 179 lives exactly a month ago. The aircraft crashed upon landing and hit a barrier at the end of the runway.
Conclusion
South Korean budget carrier Air Busan, a subsidiary of Asiana Airlines, was involved in a serious accident at Busan’s Gimhae International Airport last night. A fire that sparked short before takeoff forced an emergency evacuation during which seven passengers were slightly injured, but all lives were saved.
The aircraft hull itself is a total loss as the fire destroyed the plane entirely.
Air crash investigators in Korea are currently working on-site to determine what exactly sparked this accident, which could have easily resulted in another mass casualty disaster had the aircraft either accelerated or taken off. As it was still sitting on the taxiway/runway, the evacuation was able to go underway.
