A Hawaiian Airlines A330 was being ferried from Everett, Washington to SeaTac, Washington and after landing the engine appears to catch fire. Thankfully there was no-one on board the aircraft at the time, just the crew. There are two videos offering unique angles of the incident that happened Tuesday night.
Not something you see everyday @SeaTacAirport. Looks like an apparent engine caught fire. Luckily the pilot knew what to do it appears @komonews pic.twitter.com/hrFGsTx8x2
— Garth Dip Lip (@jasonavbc) November 8, 2017
As reported by Hawaiian Airlines they are going to be looking into the issue and confirmed that it was on just a short flight from Everett’s Paine Field to Seattle’s Seattle-Tacoma International airport, a less than one hour flight.
UPDATE: An A330 ferry flight from PAE to SEA experienced a left engine issue on final approach at SEA tonight. A left engine fire reported upon landing was extinguished. There were no passengers onboard, and the two pilots were unharmed. The aircraft is currently being inspected.
— Hawaiian Airlines (@HawaiianAir) November 8, 2017
The issue arose just after touchdown and the aircraft was taxiing to the gate when the airplane’s left engine started to erupt in a jet of fire. These bursts of fire were caught on camera and the crew were alerted to the issue. According to reports there was no indication of an engine fire during flight or upon touchdown and only happened as the plane was enroute to the gate.
Waiting to taxi to our gate at #seatac
A plane just landed with what appears to be an engine fire. It went out on its own before fire trucks arrived. Hopefully everyone is ok! pic.twitter.com/Cc8yZgMwSv— Cheryl Mander (@ManderCheryl) November 8, 2017
From what it looks like it could be a compressor stall which happens usually during takeoff when the engine isn’t getting sufficient airflow. It very clear this could be the case by how the engine spits out bursts of fire from the engine instead of a steady burn or explosion. This usually isn’t harmful to the aircraft and will only require an engine inspection after the incident.
Both the Federal Aviation Administration and Hawaiian Airlines will be launching an investigation into why this happened.
