Chaos erupted at an airport in Canada last night after a plane skidded down the runway and caught fire after making an emergency landing.
Air Canada Flight 2259 experienced landing troubles after its tyres failed to deploy during touchdown, causing the craft to smash headfirst into the tarmac.
Halifax Stanfield International Airport was shut down on Saturday while staff dealt with the fallout from the Air Canada flight to St.Johns, which thankfully saw nobody was killed and only minor injuries were reported.
The harrowing incident comes the same day a passenger plane in South Korea crashed and killed at least 167 people in the countries’ worst ever aviation disaster.
Nikki Valentine, a passenger onboard Flight 2259, told CDC: ‘The plane started to sit at about a 20-degree angle to the left and, as that happened, we heard a pretty loud – what almost sounded like a crash sound – as the wing of the plane started to skid along the pavement, along with what I presume was the engine.
‘The plane shook quite a bit and we started seeing fire on the left side of the plane and smoke started coming in the windows.’
She said the plane skidded along the runway for a ‘decent’ amount of time before finally coming to a stop, allowing passengers to evacuate the burning craft.
It took about two minutes for everyone to get off the burning plane once it finally stopped, with passengers hastily loaded onto a bus and led away from the scene.
‘One side of the entire plane was on fire, so everyone was pretty much in a hurry to get off, but an organized hurry,’ Ms Valentine added.
Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick told the Toronto Star that the flight experienced a ‘suspected landing gear issue,’ but none of the 73 passengers suffered serious injuries.
A spokesperson from the Nova Scotia Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), which responded to the scene alongside paramedics, said minor injuries were reported.
One of the airport’s runways was shut down while staff got a handle on the fire, but it has since reopened according to reports.
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