Posted: 07:36, 11 July 2022 | Updated: 08:04, 11 July 2022
Terrified passengers on a Spirit Airlines flight from Tampa are safe after one of the plane’s brakes overheated and briefly caught fire while landing in Atlanta on Sunday, causing chaos on the plane, video circulating on social media shows.
The brakes on the landing gear of Spirit Airlines Flight 383 from Tampa ignited during landing, officials at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport wrote in a tweet about the incident.
Atlanta firefighters extinguished the fire and the plane was towed to the gate to disembark panicked passengers, airport officials said.
Spirit Airlines said one of the plane’s brakes overheated.
No passengers were injured and no deaths were reported, the airline said publicly.
Spirit Airlines Flight 383 from Tampa, Florida to Atlanta, Georgia caught fire when it landed at Hartfield-Jackson Airport on Sunday, with smoke billowing from under the plane. One of the wheels of the broken plane caught fire
Video posted on social media shows smoke billowing from under the plane at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
“The aircraft was towed to the gate where the guests disembarked safely without injury. Thank you to Atlanta’s first responders for immediately meeting the aircraft,” the airline said in a statement.
“The plane will be temporarily withdrawn from service for maintenance,” he added.
Footage from inside the plane shows worried passengers getting up from their seats and looking out the portholes, noticing continuous smoke in the air coming from underneath the aircraft.
Flight attendants can then be heard telling passengers to remain calm and clear the middle aisle in case of an evacuation.
“Please remain seated,” a Spirit Airlines flight attendant tells passengers over the plane’s PA system.
Passengers on board were recorded rising from the edges of their seats and observing the smoke through the plane’s portholes before flight attendants asked them to clear the middle aisle and “please remain seated”.
The plane managed to successfully land at one of the gates of the Atlanta airport, disembarking passengers with no deaths or injuries reported
Scottie Nelms, a passenger on the plane told FOX 5 the flight was uneventful until after landing and passengers heard a strange noise coming from the left side of the plane.
Nobody knew what it was until we came to a complete stop in the middle of the runway,” Nelms told FOX 5.
“We saw a flame coming out of the engine and the people and I started shaking.”
Airplane tires are supposed to be changed on average every 120 to 400 landings, according to German airline Hydro Aero.
Aircraft tires are fully engineered to withstand extreme temperatures ranging from minus 60 degrees Celsius (140 F) at an altitude of 10,000 meters (32808 feet) to boiling on landing in some of the world’s hottest regions.
And although the chance of a plane catching fire is small, burning incidents in aircraft are not uncommon. Airplane fires occur, on average, every 10 or 11 days in the U.S., according to Consumer Reports.
