Shocking new footage has been released of the moment a Delta Air Lines jet caught fire at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport last week, prompting a full evacuation.
Newly released clip Retrieved from KOMO News A fireball and black smoke are shown billowing from the nose of the Airbus plane below the cockpit shortly after landing on the night of April 6.
Delta Air Lines Flight 604 from Cancun, Mexico, arrived safely at Washington Airport around 9:35 p.m., but things went wrong after the plane connected to the terminal’s electrical grid.
SEA spokesperson Perry Cooper said a short-circuited plug-in sparked the fire, which started directly under the cockpit of the Airbus A321.
The pilot smelled smoke and ordered the crew to remove the emergency exit slides.
One of the passengers told KOMO that he panicked when he learned that the passengers were being evacuated.
“I think people reacted to this with panic. There was a little bit of congestion in the aisles to get to the exit,” said Ashwin Menon, a software engineer in Seattle who was returning home from vacation with his wife. “But overall it was a very smooth evacuation process.”
Surveillance footage shows passengers walking onto the plane’s wing, jumping into an inflatable chute and sliding to safety onto the tarmac.
“It was like jumping out, jumping on the slide, and within minutes we were all out,” Menon said. “I was calmer than I expected. I’m pretty scared of flying.”
Cooper said about two-thirds of the 189 passengers were able to get off the slide and the rest had already passed through the passenger loading bridge.
Seattle fire officials responded and investigated whether several people may have been injured in connection with the slide, although the fire had already extinguished on its own. No one required further treatment at the hospital, Airport Spox reported.
Evacuated passengers were brought into the terminal via the stairs to the loading bridge, where they were taken to international arrivals processing and customs.
“The slide was deployed with great care and the passengers remaining on board were ejected from the rear of the aircraft,” Delta said in a statement. Passengers were fully evacuated and those who disembarked on the ramp returned to the terminal via the ramp stairs.
“The aircraft has been taken out of service for inspection and maintenance,” the statement added.
KOMO reports that the shorted electrical cord has been repaired and is operating normally.
Cooper said in a statement to the Post: “I salute the flight crew who responded out of an abundance of caution and as they were trained to do.” “It’s better to have some inconvenience than to have something worse.”
The exact cause of the fire is still under investigation.
The Federal Aviation Administration did not immediately respond to The Post’s inquiries for further details.
