A Spirit Airlines Airbus A320 caught fire Sunday morning on the runway at Atlanta’s Hartsfield–Jackson International Airport after the brakes in the landing gear ignited. No injuries were reported.
Spirit Airlines Plane Catches Fire In ATL
Atlanta Fire Rescue responded to the fire at 9:25am after the brakes in the landing gear ignited after touching down on a flight from Tampa (TPA).
Graphic video of the event was captured by an onlooker:
Spirit Airlines plane.. on fire at ATL? pic.twitter.com/NZV9PAwapJ
— Alaina Hardie (@trianglegrrl) July 10, 2022
Spirit issued the following statement on the event:
“Spirit Flight 383 from Tampa to Atlanta landed safely in Atlanta International Airport and upon landing one of the brakes overheated. The aircraft was towed to the gate where Guests safely deplaned without any injuries. Thank you to the Atlanta first responders for immediately meeting the aircraft. The plane will be temporarily removed from service for maintenance.”
Atlanta Airport also added a statement on Twitter:
🚨At 925 am today, brakes in the landing gear of @SpiritAirlines flight 383 from Tampa ignited. @ATLFireRescue put out the fire and the aircraft was towed to gate D2 where passengers disembarked. There were no injuries reported and operations have not been impacted.
— Atlanta Airport (@ATLairport) July 10, 2022
Scottie Nelms, a passenger on the plane, told Fox 5 Atlanta:
“Once we landed it made a weird noise from the left side of the plane. Nobody knew what it was until we stopped completely in the middle of the landing strip. We saw a flame coming from the engine and people and myself started freaking out.”
Flight attendants advised passengers to remain seated and that no evacuation was necessary:
Why is the plane on fire @SpiritAirlines? Help!😐 pic.twitter.com/5vQFn178Ir
— . (@imgoinscottie) July 10, 2022
CONCLUSION
A Spirit Airlines A320 caught fire upon landing at Atlanta Airport. No passengers were injured and no emergency evacuation was necessary. It’s not every day that you see a landing gear ignite, causing flames upon landing. Thankfully, the fire was quickly contained and no injures were reported.
For our pilot readers, how does a fire like this happen? Was it weather conditions coupled with the way in which the aircraft was landed? Were you on this flight? Please share your experiences below?
image: Alaina Hardie / Twitter
Hmmm, and JetBlue is bidding a pretty penny for assets like this?
Once had an MD88 holding in position on 26L, as I was crossing a few downfield. As the MD was cleared for takeoff and just spooling up the #2 compressor stalled and belched fire out the tailpipe.
The pilot reported a fire and asked for the fire trucks.
Airport fire was called on the crash phone and told of the incident location (which you could plainly see as it was nighttime, and pretty much in the sighline when you exit the north fire station).
Fire crews rolled and decided to surround a, just rolling out, B763 at the other end of 26R (near the old AirTran hanger).
Not a big confidence booster.
Trying a little hard to make that first high-speed turnoff?
Yeah, he made B3 and told to hold a B2…..problem was the on fire MadDog was at E13, 722 fully grown cows away.
A320 Brakes are made from carbon and designed to get hot. They are actually excellent brakes. There are brake fans but we only use them when approaching the ramp or if the HOT light comes on. It is too early to speculate but here are some possibilities.
1. Something was rubbing against the brakes. Wiring , or even a foreign object got stuck.
2. Crew had to use very hard manual braking for some reason or another.
3. Crew did not recognize that the aircraft was hydroplaning and continued to apply full brakes(Very doubtful)
4. Crew did not utilize full reverse thrust on the wet runway, this would have alleviated a lot of the braking if auto brakes were set to on as the auto brakes are applying enough pressure to achieve a predetermined Deceleration rate. Using reverse thrust doesn’t make the aircraft stop faster when auto brakes are on, it just allows for the same DECEL rate with less brakes. We do not use full reverse most the time since the A320 brakes are designed to heat up a bit but on a contaminated runway, its always good to use more reverse.
Many other possibilities. Most likely a mechanical fault and nothing the crew did wrong. Sounds like they handled it very nicely. Why can’t passengers just stay seated and listen. The cabin and flight deck crews are VERY well trained on how and when to initiate an evacuation.
Also…wouldn’t a more proper headline be. Spirit brakes catch fire…No injuries reported. the aircraft itself did not catch fire. Can’t the media just report the news as it is?
No Matthew is a click bait specialist! Really graphic video??? LMFAO! It is literally a little bit of smoke, how is the graphic? Gotta get those clicks, of course your kids can’t watch cartoons and our forced to be little Minnie mes….
It’s a relief that no passengers were injured and no emergency evacuation was necessary. Thank’s for the update.
It’s scary that the thing that makes our lives easier, can take our lives in a second too.
It’s a relief that there were no injuries.
As an Airbus Captain I don’t see this as being caused by the crew. My leading candidate is a hydraulic fluid leak that was ignited when the brakes got hot on landing.
If it had been brake overheat caused by hard braking it would have melted the fuse plugs and the airplane would not have been able to be towed to the gate.