A Boeing 737 plane carrying 85 people skidded off a runway at the airport in Dakar, Senegal's capital, injuring 10 people, according to the transport minister and footage from a passenger that showed the aircraft on fire on Thursday, May 9. "Our plane just caught fire," wrote Malian musician Cheick Siriman Sissoko in a post on Facebook that showed passengers jumping down the emergency slides at night as flames engulfed one side of the aircraft. In the background, people can be heard screaming.
Transport Minister El Malick Ndiaye said the Air Sénégal flight operated by TransAir was headed to Bamako, in neighboring Mali, late Wednesday, May 9, with 79 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew. The injured were being treated at a hospital, while the others were taken to a hotel to rest.
Meanwhile in Turkey, a total of 190 people were safely evacuated from a plane after one of its tires burst during landing at a southern airport, Turkey's transportation ministry said. No one was hurt. The Boeing 737-800, belonging to Turkey-based Corendon Airlines, stopped safely on the runway after landing at Gazipasa airport near the Mediterranean coastal town of Alanya, the company said. The plane, which carried 184 passengers and six crew members, was on a flight from Cologne, Germany.
The runway was not damaged but flights were diverted to the nearby Antalya airport while the aircraft was being removed. It was the second incident at a Turkish airport in as many days.
On Wednesday a Boeing 767 cargo aircraft belonging to FedEx Express made an emergency landing at Istanbul Airport after its front landing gear failed. No one was injured and the crew safely evacuated the aircraft.