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Passengers film from inside Singapore Airlines flight as plane burns

Technically Incorrect: The right engine of a Boeing 777 bursts into flames during an emergency landing at Singapore's Changi airport.

Chris Matyszczyk
2 min read

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That's the whole wing on fire.

Straits Times/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

What's remarkable from the footage is that passengers seemed to be quite calm.

A Singapore Airlines flight, on its way to Milan, turned back to Singapore on Monday, two hours into its flight.

Passengers said the pilot announced that there was an engine problem, according to the Guardian.

The airline said on Twitter that the issue was "an engine oil warning message."

The plane, with 222 passengers and 19 crew on board, executed an emergency landing at Singapore's Changi airport. After the plane touched down, however, the right engine of the Boeing 777-300ER caught fire.

Passengers had to sit inside the plane while emergency crews put out the fire.

Naturally, passengers filmed the proceedings and they were posted to YouTube and elsewhere. The footage is, in its own way, spectacular.

The whole long wing is aflame, before foam douses it.

"The fire was put out by airport emergency services and there were no injuries," said a Singapore Airlines spokesman in an emailed statement. "Passengers disembarked through stairs and were transported to the terminal building by bus."

It's unclear why passengers weren't immediately allowed to disembark down emergency chutes, which would have been on the other side of the plane to the fire.

Passenger were put on another aircraft which departed for Milan later that morning, the spokesman said.

Some commenters on Facebook wondered why the plane hadn't diverted to a nearer airport, rather than flying all the way back to Singapore.

The airline said it will be cooperating with authorities in their investigation.

Still, the trust which the passengers placed in the airline's crew and the emergency services was considerable. I'm not sure passengers in every part of the world would have been so patient.