170 passengers and six crew members evacuated a burning Airbus A321 airplane operated by Air Busan at Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea, on Tuesday night after a fire apparently broke out in the tail section of the plane.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reports that at least three people were injured as they evacuated the plane via emergency slides. The incident happened as Air Busan flight BX391 was preparing for departure to Hong Kong at around 10:26 pm on January 28.
The cause of the accident is yet to be established, although the auxiliary power unit (APU) is located in the tail section of the plane.
Firefighters rushed to the scene of the incident after smoke was initially seen billowing from the tail section of the aircraft. The fire then spread to the fuselage as passengers evacuated via emergency slides.
Photos and video taken by eyewitnesses show extensive fire damage to the passenger cabin. Emergency services reported that three people sustained minor injuries during the evacuation.
The incident comes less than a month after South Korea’s deadliest aviation accident, when 179 people were killed when a Jeju Air Boeing 737 crashed at Maun International Airport on December 29, 2024.
Air Busan is a low-cost subsidiary of South Korea’s Asiana Airways, which has been in operation since 2008. The airline operates a small fleet of Airbus A320 and A321 single-aisle aircraft and is primarily based out of Gimhae International Airport, approximately 325 kilometers southeast of Seoul.
Mateusz Maszczynski honed his skills as an international flight attendant at the most prominent airline in the Middle East and has been flying ever since... most recently for a well known European airline. Matt is passionate about the aviation industry and has become an expert in passenger experience and human-centric stories. Always keeping an ear close to the ground, Matt's industry insights, analysis and news coverage is frequently relied upon by some of the biggest names in journalism.