Passengers Flee Onto Wing As 737 Catches Fire

In an odd story out Russia, a Boeing 737 engine that caught fire prompted passengers to evacuate onto the wing of the aircraft.

An Utair 737 flight planned for Moscow (VKO) to Makhachkala (MCX) was taxiing at Moscow Vnukovo when the right engine suddenly caught fire.

Apparently unconcerned, a flight attendant simply told passengers over the intercom:

For more details please refer to the safety card in front of you.

This as flames were spewing from the engine…

Three passengers decided to act. Ripping open the overwing emergency exit door, the two men and woman climbed out of the aircraft and onto the wing of the aircraft (on the left side, of course…).

A flight attendant was eventually able to coax them back inside. She insisted that the flames were “normal”.

An Utair spokesperson later told a Russsian news station that passengers were never in danger.

This was an ordinary situation, the plane was in order, passengers were in no danger.

The spokesperson added that the flames were simply caused by disrupted airflow when the engine was started.

Even so, passengers were transferred onto a different aircraft. The flight eventually took off for Makhachkala, a port city on the western shore of the Caspian Sea.

CONCLUSION

I’m certainly not an aircraft engineer, but I’ve never heard of flames spewing from an aircraft engine being normal…

Still, I’m not sure climbing onto the wing of an aircraft makes a lot of sense when there is no way down…