A Ryanair Boeing plane caught fire on a runway in Italy while taxiing for takeoff
A Ryanair Boeing 737-8 flight.
A Ryanair flight in Italy caught fire as it was taxiing on the runway in an airport in southern Italy.
Flight FR8826 from Brindisi to Turin, a city near Italy’s border with France, caught fire on Thursday, according to CNN.
The passenger jet was a Boeing 737 Max 8 model, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.
The airline said in a statement to CNN that all 184 passengers and crew were evacuated safely from the plane and flown to Turin on a replacement flight.
“Flight FR8826 from Brindisi to Turin (3rd Oct) was delayed this morning after cabin crew observed fumes on the outside of the aircraft,” the airline said in a statement to CNN. “Passengers were disembarked without incident and returned to the terminal by bus.”
A spokesperson for the airport in Brindisi told CNN that air traffic at the airport was stopped for several hours.
The incident in Brindisi comes after another Ryanair flight’s tires exploded while landing in Milan.
The plane, arriving from Barcelona on Tuesday morning, damaged the runway at Milan’s Bergamo Airport after four of its tires burst upon landing.
Images shared on social media showed a bare metal wheel and a long scratch on the runway.
@aviationbrk Bergamo Airport this morning pic.twitter.com/0RedKQZU4V
— GVL (@GVL42867714) October 1, 2024
Ryanair has a fleet of nearly 600 aircraft. More than half of them — 335 airplanes — are Boeing 737s, according to the company’s website.
In January, Ryanair’s CEO, Michael O’Leary, called on Boeing to improve its quality control following an incident with Alaska Airlines. Its door detached during a flight, forcing pilots to make an emergency landing.
“I think that both Airbus and Boeing, certainly Boeing, need to significantly improve quality control,” O’Leary told the Financial Times.
Representatives of Ryanair didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from B-17, sent outside business hours.
