The aircraft catches fire after landing in Denver, sending passengers on the wings while smoke swallows the plane

Denver (AP) – a Fire on an American Airlines aircraft After he departed in the middle of the flight and landed at Denver International Airport, he sent passengers fled to a wing in a smoke-filled evacuation. Airport officials said 12 people were taken to hospitals with minor wounds.

The country saw a Recently of aviation disasters and close calls Stoking fears about air travel, although flight remains a very safe mode of transport. Recent ground incidents included a plane which has collapsed and overturned At landing in Toronto and a Japan airline plane cut a parked Delta plane while they were at Seattle Airport.

In this last incident, flight 1006 was driven from Colorado Springs airport to Dallas Fort Wort, but diverted to Denver and safely landed around 5:15 pm, after the crew reported the engine vibrations, the Federal Administration of Aviation said in a statement. While charging at the gate, a Boeing 737-800 engine caught fire, FAA added.

The photos and videos posted by the news stores showed the passengers coming out of the plane on the left wing, while an engine on the right wing and the black smoke surrounded the aircraft. They lined up and reached the ground using slides and stairs brought by Groundcces, according to FAA, videos and interviews for passengers.

The American said in a statement that the flight had a problem related to the engine after the taxi at the gate. There was no immediate clarification regarding the moment when the plane caught fire.

All 172 passengers and six crew members were safely evacuated from the plane, the airport authorities and officials said. American Airlines sent questions about the 12 people taken to hospitals to local officials. Ten people were taken to the University Hospital of Colorado in Aurora, but the spokesman, Kelli Christensen, said he did not have an update about how many were on Friday.

The airline said a replacement plane and a Dallas-Fort crew, said the airline. The flight landed on Friday around 5 o’clock, according to the Flight Flight Tracking site.

How frequent are the fires of the plane?

The engine fires are very rare with the crews trained to deal with them, according to the aviation expert Steven Wallace. They are usually not catastrophic, even if they appear in the air, because the airplanes can fly with a single engine, he said.

“A pilot who will work today for an airline could fly for 30 years and will never experience a defect of the engine,” said Wallace, former director of the FAA accident investigation bureau.

James Hall, the former president of the National Transport Security Council, said that the reported vibrations of the engine are unusual, but a lot of problems could have caused a fire, which makes it difficult to speculate.

Regarding the recent spaces of aviation incidents, “given the past history, you can classify it as unusual,” Hall said, but “I do not know if you have enough information to draw conclusions.”

The story of a passenger about what happened

After hearing the middle of the light that something is not right with the engine and should land, said passenger Daniel Friedman in a Interview with a Wral-TV reporter At Denver airport, he started thinking about who he would call and in what order and wrote an eology.

“I really wanted to make sure we would get here safe and I didn’t know if it would happen or not,” Friendman said.

When the plane caught fire after landing, the flames could be seen right outside the window, and people pushed and threw themselves to get off the plane, Friedman said. Once the emergency doors opened, the people climbed the wing and then on the stairs to get off the plane, he said. He said he scratched his leg jumping off the wing on a ladder. Once on Earth, Friedman wanted to call friends and family to tell them he loves them.

Friedman said he has worries that he has heard so many aviation incidents lately.

“We hope this never happens with me or anyone else, because it’s not a good day,” he said. “I do not want this.”

FAA and the National Transport Safety Council said they would be investigating.

“We thank our crew members, the DNA team and the first respondents for their fast and decisive actions, with the safety of everyone on board and on the field as a priority,” said American Airlines.

Ian Paisley, the resident of Colorado, was at the airport on Friday to fly in Hawaii with his family and said he was flying three or four times a year. He heard about Thursday’s fire, but he didn’t think he would change his family’s plans.

“We can trust that, although these are terrible things that happen and very scary for people, that for most of us it will not be something that affects our lives and we can trust that we can still climb into the air and be safe,” he said.

___ Brumfield reported from Washington.