CHICAGO: Passengers Use Escape Chutes After Jet Catches Fire On O’Hare Runway, Nine Injuries [VIDEO]

By coincidence, today was O’Hare’s fire drill day and they’d issued social media messages telling people not to worry if they saw anything unusual. DNA Info reports:



A harrowing scene played out at O’Hare Airport Friday afternoon after an American Airlines flight caught fire on a runway, forcing 170 people to flee the plane on inflated slides as huge flames and thick black smoke poured out. All 161 passengers and nine crew survived after American flight 383 bound for Miami went up in flames, officials said.

American Airlines said the pilot aborted takeoff “due to an engine-related mechanical issue.” The FAA said “the pilots reported that the aircraft blew a tire.” Hector Cardenas, a passenger, told ABC7 the plane was moving down the runway when the pilot aborted the flight. It had not yet taken off, he told ABC7.

“We were seconds away from taking off … within ten or 15 seconds we would have been in the air,” Hector Cardenas told ABC7. “Everybody was standing up running like it was the end of their lives.”