A plane is seen after skidding off the runway at Blaise Diagne International Airport in Dakar, Senegal May 9, 2024.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS
A Boeing 737-3 plane carrying 85 people skidded off a runway at the airport in Dakar, Senegal’s capital, injuring 10 people, according to the transport minister, an airline safety group and footage from a passenger that showed the aircraft on fire.
“Our plane just caught fire,” wrote Malian musician Cheick Siriman Sissoko in a post on Facebook that showed passengers jumping down the emergency slides at night as flames engulfed one side of the aircraft. In the background, people can be heard screaming.
Transport Minister El Malick Ndiaye said the Air Sénégal flight operated by TransAir was headed to Bamako, in neighboring Mali, late Wednesday with 79 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew.
The injured were being treated at a hospital, while the others were taken to a hotel to rest. Boeing referred a request for comment to the airlines.
It was the third incident involving a Boeing airplane this week. Also on Thursday, 190 people were safely evacuated from a plane in Turkey after one of its tires burst during landing at a southern airport, Turkey’s transportation ministry said.