Houston Chronicle
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Feb. 2—United Airlines had to evacuate passengers on a flight departing from Houston Sunday morning after a fire was spotted on the plane before takeoff.
The Federal Aviation Administration ( FAA) reported that United Airlines Flight 1382 aborted takeoff at George Bush Intercontinental Airport because of an engine issue discovered around 8:35 a.m. Sunday. The Airbus A319 was scheduled to fly to LaGuardia Airport in New York.
The Houston Fire Department said on X Sunday that its Airport Rescue officials were assisting with evacuations, and no injures had been reported.
In video acquired by Fox 26, passengers on United Flight 1382 are heard yelling about a fire that can be spotted at one of the plane's wings. The video shows bright orange flames at the wing area.
"Please, please, please get us out of here," a passenger says in the video. The video then cuts to showing passengers standing around after being evacuated.
Fox 26 reported that 104 passengers and five crew members were aboard the flight. A different United aircraft will fly the passengers to New York at 12:30 p.m.
The incident in Houston occurred four days after the deadliest U.S. air crash in more than two decades, when American Airlines Flight 5342 hit an Army helicopter near Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. All 64 people aboard the American Airlines flight, and all three passengers in the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter were killed in the incident.
Then on Friday night, a medical aircraft carrying six passengers crashed in a highly populated area of Philadelphia. As of Sunday morning, seven people have been reported dead and 19 injured in the Philadelphia incident.
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