The passengers and crew of an Air Busan Airbus A321 abandoned it successfully after a fire broke out while its crew were preparing to depart.

This accident happened on Tuesday, the 28th of January. It involved an Air Busan A321, whose crew were about to perform flight BX-391. This is a daily service, departing from South Korea’s  Busan Gimhae International Airport (RKPK), heading for Hong Kong International.

On the day of this accident, there were 169 passengers and six crew on board, plus a maintenance engineer. According to available reports, the aircraft was preparing to depart when a fire broke out.

It is not clear if the aircraft had pushed back and/or started to taxi before the accident. Pictures and video show it away from buildings. However, the previous flight of this Air Busan A321 ended with it parked at a remote stand, where passengers and crew disembarked using airstairs.

Fire Consumes Air Busan A321

In any case, the fire reportedly started at the back of the aircraft’s cabin under unknown circumstances. The passengers and crew evacuated the doomed Airbus using slides. All survived, but four people suffered non-life-threatening injuries, according to reports.

Airport firefighting crews took approximately an hour and fifteen minutes to extinguish the fire, which had already burned through the upper side of the fuselage of the Air Busan A321. The aircraft appears to be a total loss.

If it is, then this accident is the first hull loss for Air Busan. It was 17 years old and had registration HL7763. The Airbus A321 first entered service with Asiana Airlines in November of 2007, which kept it until June 2017.

Air Busan is a low-cost carrier that belongs to the Asiana Group. Before being passed on to Air Busan, the A321 suffered a tailstrike incident in Osaka, Japan, in 2009.

Air Busan is an all-Airbus carrier. The A321 makes up most of its fleet, with seven other legacy A321s and eight A321neos. The airline also has five legacy A320s. It started operations in 2008, initially with a Boeing 737 Classic fleet. It retired the last of those jets in 2016.

Source: Aviation Herald