Air Mauritius Plane Aborts Take-off After Catching Fire At Indian Airport

Air Mauritius, the Mauritian national airline nearly lost a plane in the Indian capital, New Delhi on Thursday when a big bird was sucked into one of the right hand side engines of the plane. In a communiqué issued Friday in the Mauritian capital Port Louis, Air Mauritius explained that the plane which was to take off from New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International airport was already gathering speed on the runway when the pilot heard a boom and saw smoke coming out of the engine.

He immediately aborted the take-off as the engine had caught fire.

The communiqué added that some passengers sustained minor injuries when they all rushed to the emergency exits to leave the plane on the sliding chutes. Immediately after. Emergency procedures were started with units of the fire brigade together with the staff of the airport rushing to the spot for the relief and rescue operation.

The communiqué pointed out that the wounded passengers were treated by the medical staff at the airport and all the 241 passengers on board were taken to different hotels in the Indian capital at the cost of the airline.

An empty plane has been dispatched from Mauritius to New Delhi to bring the passengers back, the communiqué further indicated.

An engineer of Air Mauritius, who requested anonymity indicated to APA that if the incident had happened when the plane had already left the runway and was in the air, it would have been very difficult for the heavy plane to land again as it had just been refueled. He added that it would have taken a lot of time to jettison all the fuel and that the plane could have caught fire and crashed with all its passengers.

Source African Press Agency

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