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Flames and smoke erupt from the engines of a Singapore Airlines plane on the tarmac at Changi Airport on Monday. Photo: Twitter / aDilaLovatics
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Singapore Airlines jet catches fire after emergency return to Changi Airport

Bloomberg
Bloomberg
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Singapore Airlines said a jet carrying 241 passengers and crew caught fire while landing at the city’s Changi Airport Monday morning after aborting a trip to Milan due to an engine-oil warning message.

The aircraft’s right engine caught fire after the jet touched down at about 6.50am local time, the airline said in an e-mailed statement. Emergency crew rushed to put out the fire on the Boeing 777-300ER aircraft and there were no injuries to the 222 passengers and 19 crew on board, the airline said. SQ368 was on a flight to Milan from Singapore.

Flames race down the starboard wing of a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777 at Changi Airport on Monday in this still image taken from handout video. Photo: Reuters
The damaged wing is seen after the fire was put out. Photo: reuters
“Passengers disembarked through stairs and were transported to the terminal building by bus,” the airline said. “Singapore Airlines will be co-operating fully with the authorities in their investigations.”

Plane engine fires are rare and the Boeing 777 is one of the safest aircraft in the world, with only five of them having suffered irreparable damage since introduction in 1993, according to Aviation Safety Network. The twin-aisle jet has two engines.

Boeing is “aware of the situation and gathering information,” the Chicago-based aircraft maker said in an e-mailed response to a query, without elaborating. The airline said an assessment of the damage will need to be carried out and said it had no further information to provide immediately.

Of the five 777s that have suffered irreparable damage, two incidents were on the tarmac of airports in London and Cairo. An Asiana Airlines plane landed short of a runway at San Francisco airport in 2013 while Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was suspected of being shot down over Ukraine in 2014 by a missile. And then there’s MH370, a jet that disappeared more than two years back and is believed to have crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean.
This image provided by Lee Bee Yee shows passengers disembarking the flight after the fire was doused. Photo: AP
The Boeing 777, its starboard wing charred from an engine fire, is towed across the tarmac at Changi Airport. Photo: AFP
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