Plane catches fire on runway at South Korean airport
A plane caught fire on a runway in South Korea, forcing passengers to use the escape slide to evacuate.
The Air Busan plane was set to leave Gimhae International Airport for Hong Kong when its rear parts burst into flames, the country's transport ministry said.
The plane's 169 passengers, six crew members and one engineer were evacuated from the aircraft. Three people suffered minor injuries, the National Fire Agency said.
The agency said the blaze was extinguished at 11.31pm local time, about an hour after firefighters were deployed to the scene.
The cause of the fire remains unknown, but the transport ministry said it was an A321 model aircraft.
The evacuation comes a month after a Jeju Air passenger plane crashed at Muan International Airport in southern South Korea, killing all but two of the 181 people on board.
The plane was returning from Bangkok, Thailand, on 29 December when it failed to deploy its landing gear, skidding off the runway and crashing into concrete barriers before bursting into flames.
It was one of the deadliest disasters in South Korea's aviation history.
A preliminary report into the crash found traces of bird strikes were in both engines of the aircraft, though officials have not determined the cause of the accident.
-SKY NEWS
