ANKARA: Two people were injured yesterday when a Norway-bound plane at an airport on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast was evacuated after fire broke out in the cockpit, a travel agency and television reports said.
Several other passengers suffered smoke inhalation.
Passengers told Norwegian media that the pilots and crew fled the jet before the passengers could escape the smoke-filled cabin in a chaotic scramble for the exits.
The blaze broke out in the cockpit of a Boeing 737-800 of Turkey’s Corendon Airlines shortly before it was due to take off early Sunday from the city of Antalya for Tronheim in Norway with 158 passengers aboard.
During the escape, two passengers each broke a leg and several others were later taken to hospital suffering from the effects of smoke, television reports said.
The deputy director of the Oslo travel agency Detur, Fatih Fadir, said that the passengers were evacuated after the fire started.
“Two of them broke a leg and have been hospitalised in Antalya,” he said. “They are doing well and could return to Norway perhaps tomorrow (Monday).
“The others were taken to hospital because they breathed in smoke, but it is nothing serious.”
The other passengers were flown back to Norway later Sunday aboard another flight.
Speaking to the media on their arrival in Norway, some passengers accused the crew of fleeing the aircraft before they could.
AFP
