The plane caught fire on the runway, passengers fled

The video recording the incident was posted by China Central Television (CCTV) on the morning of May 12, showing billowing black smoke from the fuselage of an Airbus A319-100 on the runway of Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport. .

Passengers fled the plane after exiting via the evacuation slide at the back door.

Immediately after the incident, rescue and fire services were on the scene to extinguish the fire and evacuate passengers.

The fire has now been extinguished and the runway is closed.

In a notice posted on Weibo, Tibet Airlines said all 113 passengers and nine crew members had been evacuated.

Video: Chinese plane burst into flames on the runway

Some were taken to hospital for treatment of minor injuries. No deaths have been recorded.

According to SCMPthe fire broke out when plane number TV9833 was about to depart for Tibet.

The case is still under investigation. The crashed Airbus A319-100 served the airline for nine and a half years.

In March, a China Eastern Airlines plane crashed in Wuzhou City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, killing 132 people.

In a preliminary report on the accident, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said it did not find the China Eastern plane had any damage to its navigation or flight monitoring equipment and that the cause of the accident had not been determined. .

In addition, the qualifications of the crew, maintenance staff also “meet the requirements”.

The CAAC also concluded that there was no information that the aircraft had an error prior to departure and that no cargo had been identified as dangerous on board.

As for the two black boxes that record the cockpit voice and track the flight data, Chinese officials said these devices were seriously damaged by the impact and are recovering and analyzing the data.

China must submit a preliminary report to the International Civil Aviation Organization 30 days after the crash of flight MU5735. Chinese aviation expert Li Xiaojin said it could take at least a year for the authorities to come to a final conclusion.