According to a spokesperson for the Lufthansa subsidiary Air Dolomiti on Monday, the pilot announced a smoke alarm and abandoned take off for the ATR 72 headed for Bologna, Italy on Sunday. The airline treated the plane’s evacuation as a mild incident despite heightened awareness after the tragic plan crash that killed 153 in Madrid last week.
But on Tuesday the amateur video, filmed by a bystander, is circulating to great interest on German television and the Internet. The footage shows tense moments of some 60 passengers jumping from and fleeing the the burning plane before fire department workers extinguish the flames.
“The fire department was there in a minute and no one was injured,” a Munich airport spokesperson told German daily Die Welt on Tuesday.
But the airline has admitted that the incident was different than initially portrayed, telling Die Welt that the landing gear on the left side of aircraft did catch fire, though the extent of the danger to passengers remains unknown.
Please whitelist us to continue reading.