A potentially catastrophic incident occurred at Halifax airport on Saturday night when the wing of an Air Canada passenger plane caught fire during landing.
According to CBC News, the plane, which was arriving from St. John’s, experienced difficulties while landing, causing it to skid down the runway. The incident resulted in a fire breaking out on part of the plane, prompting a temporary closure of the airport.
A passenger, Nikki Valentine, said one of the plane’s tires did not deploy properly upon landing.
“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,” she said.
“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.
According to a statement released by the airport, the incident occurred involving Air Canada Flight 2259, which was operated by PAL Airlines, at approximately 9:30 p.m. local time.
Although the statement did not disclose the number of passengers on board, it confirmed that all individuals were safely evacuated from the plane and subsequently transported to a hangar, where they received medical attention from paramedics.
Valentine approximated that the plane had a capacity of around 80 passengers, with a seating arrangement of roughly 20 rows and two seats on each side of the aisle.
She reported that the flight was nearly full, and it took approximately two minutes to evacuate all passengers safely from the aircraft.
According to her, one side of the entire plane was on fire, “so everyone was pretty much in a hurry to get off — but an organized hurry”.
Valentine told CBC that the passengers did not seem to suffer any life-threatening injuries but were shaken up.