Air Canada flight catches fire during landing hours after the South Korean plane crash

The Halifax Airport was shut down by the authorities on Saturday night (local time) after part of the plane caught fire during a rough landing. The crash took place just 2 hours after a passenger plane carrying 181 people crashed in South Korea while landing, presumably killing 179 onboard. According to Canadian news outlet CBC News, the plane was coming from St John’s, experienced a problem landing and skidded down the runway.

One of the passengers who was onboard told CBC News that one of the plane tyres did not deploy properly during the 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,” the passenger named Nikki Valentine told the Canadian news outlet.

Valentine recalled that the plane skidded down the runway for a “decent” distance as the pilots worked to stop the aircraft. It eventually caught fire, raising alarms among the airport authorities. “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.

Matter under investigation

Soon after the incident, the Halifax Airport authorities issued a statement in which they mentioned that the aircraft which faced the malfunction was Air Canada Flight 2259, which was operated by PAL Airlines. The incident took place at 9:30 pm (local time) and the cause of the malfunction is still unknown.

The statement does not say exactly how many people were on board. However, the airport authorities said that all the passengers were being evacuated and taken to a hangar to be checked out and treated by the paramedics. While speaking to CBC News Valentine estimated that the plane had the capacity of about 80 passengers, with about 20 rows of seats and a pair of seats on either side of the aisle.

She mentioned that it was mostly full and it took up to 2 minutes to get everyone off the plane. “One side of the entire plane was on fire, so everyone was pretty much in a hurry to get off — but an organized hurry,” she said. Valentine also stated that the passengers did not seem to suffer any life-threatening injuries but were shaken up. Meanwhile, the airport authorities announced that they are opening one of its runways following the incident.