UP IN FLAMES

Delta Plane Bursts Into Flames on Florida Tarmac

An engine fire forced passengers to evacuate the plane at Orlando International Airport.

Passengers were forced to evacuate a Delta Air Lines flight from Orlando to Atlanta after the plane’s engine caught fire Monday. The Airbus A330 plane was about to leave the tarmac at the Orlando International Airport in Florida when a fire was reported in one of the engines, according to the airline and the Federal Aviation Administration. All 282 passengers, 10 flight attendants, and two pilots exited the aircraft through its emergency slides. Delta said in a statement: “We appreciate our customers’ cooperation and apologize for the experience. Nothing is more important than safety and Delta teams will work to get our customers to their final destinations as soon as possible.” This is not Delta’s first aircraft mishap in the past few months. A similar incident occurred in January, when a Boeing 757 Delta Air Lines plane’s engine caught fire at the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, injuring several people. In February, a Delta flight also flipped over while landing at a Toronto airport, leaving 21 people injured, and in March, one of the airline’s planes almost collided with an Air Force jet.