By JESSICA DONATI (Associated Press)
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — A Boeing 737-300 aircraft carrying 85 individuals veered off a runway at Senegal’s capital airport, causing 10 people to be injured, as reported by the transport minister, an airline safety organization, and a passenger's video showing the plane on fire.
“Our plane just caught fire,” expressed Malian musician Cheick Siriman Sissoko in a Facebook post displaying passengers using emergency slides in the dark while one side of the aircraft was engulfed in flames at Dakar airport. In the background, people can be heard screaming.
Transport Minister El Malick Ndiaye stated that the Air Sénégal flight, operated by TransAir, was en route to Bamako, Mali, late Wednesday with 79 passengers, two pilots, and four cabin crew. The airport reopened on Thursday morning after being closed overnight.
The injured individuals were receiving treatment at a hospital, while the rest were taken to a hotel to rest. Boeing redirected a request for comment to the airlines.
This marked the third incident involving a Boeing airplane this week. Additionally, 190 people were safely evacuated from a plane in Turkey after one of its tires burst during landing at a southern airport, according to Turkey’s transportation ministry.
The company has faced significant pressure since a door plug blew out of a Boeing 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January, resulting in a large hole in the plane. Following this incident, the Federal Aviation Administration gave Boeing 90 days to develop a plan to resolve quality issues and meet safety requirements for aircraft production.
The event has intensified scrutiny on Boeing to the highest degree since the two crashes of Boeing 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019 that resulted in the deaths of 346 people. Close to a dozen relatives of passengers who died in the second crash have been advocating for the U.S. government to reinstate a criminal fraud charge against the company by establishing that Boeing violated the terms of a 2021 settlement.
In April, a whistleblower at Boeing, Sam Salehpour, provided testimony during a congressional hearing indicating that the company had taken shortcuts in manufacturing the 787s to expedite production, potentially resulting in the aircraft breaking apart.
The Aviation Safety Network, an organization that monitors airline accidents, identified the plane as a Boeing 737-38J. The network shared images of the damaged plane in a grassy area, surrounded by fire suppressant foam, on X, formerly known as Twitter. According to the photos, one engine seemed to have fractured and a wing was also damaged.
ASN is part of the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group focused on promoting safe air travel and monitoring accidents.
