Panic as Vueling plane catches fire in Florence

The fire broke out in the plane's landing gear just after landing at Florence's Vespucci airport on Wednesday morning, Vueling confirmed in a statement.  

All passengers were evacuated safely and nobody was injured, although some were taken to a medical centre as a precaution, the company said.

"Once the aircraft stopped,  the captain noticed smoke and flames coming from the landing gear, on the right side. As an emergency procedure, the captain decided to evacuate the aircraft."

The flight had been travelling from Paris. La Repubblica reported that four children were among the passengers evacuated using the plane's emergency slide.

"We landed safely but then suddenly we saw smoke coming from the right side," Sara, a French tourist who arrived in Italy with her daughter for a holiday in Tuscany, was quoted in La Repubblica as saying.

"I was scared and told my daughter, 'we'll burn! we'll burn! But the firefighters arrived and we were evacuated down the chute, using foam. Everything was done very quickly. Now we're waiting for our bags, documents and everything we left on the plane."

The company is now working to establish the cause of the fire.