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March 29, 2024

Jet at McCarran International Airport catches fire; 14 taken to hospital

British Airways Fire at McCarran

L.E. Baskow

A British Airways passenger jet is surrounded by emergency vehicles after a fire Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015, at McCarran International Airport.

Updated Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015 | 10:37 p.m.

British Airways Fire at McCarran

A British Airways passenger jet is shown after a fire at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas September 8, 2015. Launch slideshow »

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A woman wearing a British Airways uniform is loaded onto an ambulance outside Terminal 3 at McCarran International Airport Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015, after a British Airways outbound flight caught fire on the tarmac.

Some 170 people scrambled off an outbound British Airways jet today at the Las Vegas airport after an engine caught fire, sending 14 people to the hospital with injures mostly suffered escaping the burning airliner, officials said.

Most of the injuries occurred as people slid down the inflatable chutes used to evacuate aircraft, according to the Clark County Fire Department. Paramedics also evaluated people on Flight 2276 for respiratory distress, officials said.

Passengers said the plane was accelerating down the McCarran International Airport runway bound for London's Gatwick Airport when the pilot suddenly brought it to a quick stop. Within seconds, passengers could smell smoke and see the engine area on fire.

"It was frightening,” said Philip Fields, who was sitting by the engine. “I could see the flames through the window.”

Roy Dunk, who was on the plane with his wife and a friend, said passengers panicked and screamed as they pushed toward the inflatable slides. Flight attendants yelled, "Get away! Get away!," as passengers exited, he said.

A number of people were at a triage area awaiting medical assessment by paramedics, but no critical injuries were noted during an initial check, officials said.

At Terminal 3, from which British Airways operates, at least three people were seen being taken by stretcher to ambulances. One, a woman, was wearing a British Airways uniform.

A total of 157 passengers and 13 crew members were on board.

Firefighters at the airport were alerted at 4:13 p.m. to the blaze on the 275-seat Boeing 777-200 and arrived within two minutes, fire department officials said. All passengers were off the plane at 4:18 p.m., officials said.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said the plane’s left engine caught fire. Billowing black smoke and orange flames could be seen pouring from the wings before about 50 firefighters quickly doused the aircraft.

Clark County Deputy Fire Chief Jon Klassen said the cause of the fire wasn’t clear yet. It didn’t appear to breach the cabin, he said.

Rosemary Vassiliadis, director of aviation at McCarran, said investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were scheduled to arrive Wednesday. The runway where the plane caught fire was closed but was expected to reopen tonight. The plane will be towed to another part of the airport.

British Airways issued a brief statement saying that safety is the company’s priority and it was looking after the passengers involved in the incident. It advised friends and family of those on the flight to call 1-800-654-3246 for information, according to a tweet from McCarran.

A spokesman for Boeing said the company was aware of the fire and was looking into it.

In a telephone interview with CNN, a person identified as a passenger on another plane on the McCarran tarmac said the fire was in the left engine area of the plane. The plane's inflatable slides came out, and passengers slid down them to flee the fire, he said.

"It looked like the emergency systems deployed as they were designed to do," said the witness, identified as Bradley Hampton. "The people were running fast, and it looked like everybody was coming out at once."

Hampton said his flight was halted to allow emergency responders to get to the British Airways plane.

"They were very, very quick to put out the fire," he said.

One runway was shut down, but flight operations continued on three other runways.

Paul Bobson, a spokesman for McCarran, said the FAA issued a ground stop for inbound aircraft within 1,200 miles from Las Vegas, but the order was lifted about 6:30 p.m. Airports impacted included San Francisco, San Jose, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Denver, Alburquerque and Boise.

Planes departing Las Vegas were experiencing delays of about 30 to 45 minutes, according to FlightAware, an online flight tracking service.

Todd Deaner said he was pulling out of a parking lot with a business client near Sunset Road and Eastern Avenue when he saw a plume of smoke and flames.

“Our first reaction was that, ‘Oh my God, a plane crashed as it was landing,’” he said.

In the 30 or so seconds he spent fixated on the scene, fire crews began fighting the fire, he said.

“They did it so quickly, and I imagine that probably saved a lot of lives,” he said.

He and the client went to lunch and checked social media for news on the fire.

After lunch, he stopped along an airport fence near Sunset and Bermuda Road, where onlookers gathered.

Though the fire was out, people pulled along the side of the road to take pictures of the plane, which had clear burn damage near one of the exits.

Reggie Bügmüncher of Philadelphia said she was charging her phone and waiting at a gate for her flight when she heard people saying, "Oh, my God." She looked out the window and could see "bursts of flames coming out of the middle of the plane."

"Everyone ran to the windows and people were standing on their chairs, looking out, holding their breath with their hands over their mouths," Bügmüncher said.

The plane's emergency slides were deployed a few moments later and passengers quickly got off the plane. She said it was a "bit more orderly" than she would have expected given the dramatic nature of the fire and smoke.

McCarran is the ninth-busiest in the U.S. and had nearly 43 million passengers last year. The airport has been taking steps to accommodate more international travelers seeking direct flights to Europe and Asia, including adding new gates to accommodate wide-body double-decker jets.

The 777 is a long-range, twin-engine jet that British Airways operates on long haul routes to North and South American, the Caribbean, Africa and Far East, among other locales.

The airline is one of the world's largest operators of the twin-aisle plane, according to British Airways' website.

The 777, which entered service in 1995, has been at the center of several high-profile accidents and incidents in recent years.

A Malaysia Airlines 777-200ER was reported missing on March 8, 2014, over the South China Sea, touching off an extensive search that continues today and rampant speculation about what had become of the plane. A piece of debris from the flight — the first physical evidence of a crash — was found last month in the Indian Ocean.

Four months later, another Malaysia Airlines flight crashed in eastern Ukraine after being hit by an anti-aircraft missile.

Two years ago, an Asiana Airlines 777 crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport, killing three people and injuring 150. Investigators determined that the pilot crew made numerous errors in the approach, including inadvertently preventing the plane’s “auto throttle” system from maintaining speed.

The plane was too low and slow as it approached the landing strip, and it crashed when the tail hit a seawall and ripped off.

Among incidents involving the jet:

• In August 2004, an engine of a Singapore Airlines 777-312 caught fire as the aircraft took off from Melbourne. The cause was determined to be erosion of high pressure “liners” within the engines.

• As a Pakistan International Airlines 777-200ER was landing on March 1, 2005, in Manchester, England, fire was seen around the left landing gear. The crew and passengers were evacuated upon landing, and the aircraft sustained minor damage.

• A crash-landing at Heathrow in January 2008 occurred when ice crystals formed in the fuel, cutting of the fuel supply to the engines and robbing them of power.

Editor's note: The number of injured passengers was updated by authorities after this story was published. Officials said 27 people were injured.

Sun reporters Jackie Valley, Daniel Rothberg Pashtana Usufzy and Megan Messerly contributed to this report, as did the Associated Press.

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