None of the flight’s passengers or crew were injured in the chilling incident, and passengers, who were headed to the Hajj, were boarded onto a new flight later Wednesday.

A Boeing 747-400 with 468 people aboard was forced to make an emergency landing in Indonesia on Wednesday after one of its engines caught fire and began shooting out flames during takeoff.

The Garuda Indonesia flight was bound for Medina, Saudi Arabia, which is the entry point for many Muslims making their pilgrimage to Mecca. It left from Indonesia’s international airport in Makassar, where clips showed one of the plane’s four engines becoming engulfed in flames during takeoff on Wednesday evening.

Videos of the engine fire were shared online by JACDEC, a plane crash data evaluation firm, which showed that the flames began just as the plane had lifted from the runway.

  • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
    0·
    6 months ago

    My guess is that they wanted the plane to use up most of the fuel before attempting the landing. As long as the plane is flying, the speed of the plane adds a level of safety to the fire. Once the plane lands and slows down, that fire would start affecting the rest of the wing much more, but there can’t be a big kaboom anymore if the fuel tanks are empty.

    • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
      0·
      6 months ago

      Long distance 747 flighs usually take off above the maximum landng weight. They need to get rid of the fuel before landing, but the 400 has the ability to dump fuel.

      The engine wasn’t on fire. The engine had a surge on takeoff. They would have shut the engine off as it might have been damaged, but the plane was not on fire. They would have landed much sooner if it was.

      Many articles describe engine surges with language that, while not technically a lie, is written to make readers conclude that the airplane is actually on fire.