Passenger plane catches fire in Korea's Busan airport, injuring 7

A passenger aircraft caught fire at an international airport in the southeastern city of Busan in the Republic of Korea on Tuesday, with seven people sustaining injuries while evacuating.

Fire authorities said an Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321-200, bound for Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in Busan, some 320 kilometres southeast of Seoul, caught fire at its tail before its takeoff. They added that all 169 passengers, six crew members and one maintenance worker aboard evacuated on an inflatable slide.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known. A fire official said the fire apparently started inside the tail end of the plane. Soon after the fire, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport set up a team to look into what happened. It plans to send seven officials to the scene to investigate the cause of the fire.

According to the ministry's aviation technical information system, the ill-fated Air Busan plane had been in service for over 17 years.