PHUKET: An Air Berlin
flight from Phuket to Abu Dhabi in the UAE caught fire after takeoff
around 10 pm tonight (December 20) from Phuket International Airport.
With flames pouring from
one wing of the Airbus A330-200 aircraft, the captain managed to circle
and put the aircraft back down on the runway in Phuket, bursting a wheel
in the process.
All 249 passengers aboard flight AB/BER7425 –
said to be mostly Australians en route from Melbourne – are understood
to have been evacuated safely, and the fire has now been extinguished.
The passengers have been taken from the airport to hotels while they await news of how they will continue their journey.
The
crippled aircraft is still sitting on the runway. All flights in and
out of the airport are delayed until the aircraft can be towed away.
Air Berlin is a major airline, in Germany second only to Lufthansa. It has a fleet of 135 aircraft.
Founded
in 1978 as a charter airline, it has only one earlier recorded
incident, in 2010, when one of its aircraft skidded off the runway at
Nuremberg Airport during takeoff on a domestic flight, causing the
airport to be closed for a few hours.
http://www.thephuketnews.com
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