Fifteen people were injured Thursday when an airliner caught fire while taxiing to a runway in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, authorities said. Airline is headquartered in Greensboro, NC and offers service from airports in New York, Guyana, Florida, Venezuela, Hong Kong, Palau with its fleet of B767 wide body aircrafts.
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The plane was operated by Dynamic worldwide Airways, a US-certificated airline that only recently had begun flights between Fort Lauderdale and Caracas’ Simon Bolivar global Airport.
Video images circulating on the Internet showed a large cloud of black smoke pouring from the plane.
Twenty-one people, including a child and trauma patient, were taken to Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Health Medical Center after the incident, Broward County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Mike Jachles tweeted.
Luis Campana, a 71-year-old rancher, was traveling to Venezuela’s Guarico state with his wife and sister. As a result of the fire, 226 flights were delayed and 43 were canceled, airport spokesman Gregory Meyer said.
“So lucky, I think we all have a big angel that protect us”, said Camilia Diaz.
The accident could have been catastrophic had the jet taken off with a fuel leak, Greg Feith, a former crash investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, told Reuters.
“Once the aircraft is airborne, it becomes a flying blowtorch”, Feith said. “It was pretty nerve-wracking, knowing that the door wasn’t opening and that something was on fire”.
“Hey, uh, Dynamic is, out of the left engine, it looks like it’s leaking a lot of – I don’t know if it’s fuel, it’s fluid leaking out of the live engine”, the second plane’s pilot told Air Traffic Control, according to audio provided by LiveATC.net.
A short time later another voice says, “Engine’s on fire! Engine’s on fire! We’re calling the fire engine right now”.
“There is no fire now”, he said, adding that the plane was quickly evacuated.
“I… turned around, saw lights and flames (and) ran to the front of the aircraft”, he told reporters. Neither of the airport’s two runways was damaged.
“I was terrified about what was going on”, she said.
The passengers and crew were evacuated and the fire extinguished but one person has been left with severe burns.
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One focus will be pinpointing the source of the leak, including how it got there and who might have had a role in it.
