Plane Catches Fire in South Korea

A passenger plane operated by Air Busan caught fire before takeoff at Gimhae International Airport in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday evening. The Airbus A321 was set to fly to Hong Kong when a fire started in its rear section. According to the Transport Ministry, all 176 individuals on board, including 169 passengers, six crew members, and one engineer, were evacuated safely via an escape slide.

The National Fire Agency reported that "three people suffered minor injuries during the evacuation." Firefighters extinguished the fire at 11:31pm, about an hour after it began. The cause of the fire has not yet been determined. This incident follows a significant previous aviation accident in the country involving a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800, which crashed a month earlier at Muan International Airport, killing all but two of the 181 passengers. That crash occurred on December 29 after a failure in the landing gear led the plane to skid off the runway. Initial investigations have found traces of bird strikes in the plane's engines, though the exact cause of the crash remains unknown. (This story was generated by Newser's AI chatbot. Source: the AP)