All flights have been suspended at Shannon Airport, following a fire on a plane this morning.
The Omni Air International jet, which is a civilian airline that transports personnel for the United State’s military, had to be evacuated on the runway on account of the incident.
The alarm was raised shortly after 6 o’clock this morning, after Air traffic controllers noticed smoke coming from the jet’s right side landing gear, as it taxied along the runway.
It’s understood that the Omni Air International jet Boeing 767-300 just was about to depart, when the crew had to return to the terminal.
It was first thought that the smoke was coming from the braking system so the flight crew decided to stop on the runway and request a tug, to tow the jet back to its parking stand.
As the jet continued towards the terminal, air traffic controllers called the flight crew again and instructed them to evacuate their aircraft, as a fire could now been seen in the left side landing gear.
The crew brought their aircraft to a stop on the runway, while passengers and crew quickly left the jet, via two emergency slides on the right side of the plane.
In the meantime, airport fire crews were scrambled to deal with the incident.
As as result, the only operational runway at Shannon has been closed with just one inbound cargo flight being forced to divert to Dublin so far.
In a statement to Clare FM, Shannon Group has confirmed that airport operations at Shannon Airport have been temporarily suspended this morning, due to “an incident involving a Boeing 763 aircraft, Omni Air International 531, on the runway. Airport Emergency services are currently on the scene and earlier extinguished an external fire to the undercarriage”.
It goes on to say that “All passengers and crew have disembarked safely and are currently in the terminal building”.
The airport operations team are currently working with the operator to remove the aircraft from the runway.
Two Aer Lingus flights servicing Heathrow have been cancelled and for remaining flights, passengers are advised to contact their airline.
Further updates will be available here and on the airport’s Twitter page
