Mumbai:On Friday said that a fuel leak from the wings of an Air India flight caused one of the engines to catch fire.
The fire brigade and disaster management teams surround the stranded Boeing 747 aircraft of the state-run national carrier Air India as it stands with its emergency slides deployed on the tramac of the Chattrapati Shivaji International airport in Mumbai on Friday. The engine of the left side an Air India plane caught fire as the jet prepared to take off from Mumbai but all 229 passengers were safely evacuated, a company spokesman said. The passengers, who were heading to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, would travel on an alternate flight, he said, adding that details of the accident were being sought.
Ruling out the possibility of a technical snag leading to the grounding of the aircraft at Mumbai Airport on Friday morning, the experts said the fuel leaked onto the heated engines of the aircraft and that had caused the fire.
Had it not been detected, they said it could have led to a major catastrophe in the air.