15 injured after fire scare on Jet flight in Mumbai

MUMBAI: Mumbai airport saw unprecedented scenes on Friday evening when passengers of a Jet Airways flight to Chennai were asked to evacuate through emergency chutes after passengers saw smoke inside the cabin — close to the left wing — and pointed it out to the crew.

But the inflatable evacuation chutes at two of the exits near the middle of the aircraft failed to open, forcing many of the passengers to jump on to one of the wings and then jump down to the tarmac. Three of the panicky passengers suffered fractures and a dozen more received minor injuries in the process.

All of them were given first aid by Mumbai International Airport Limited officials and those who suffered fractures were taken to hospital.

The incident took place around 9pm when flight 9W2302, already 45 minutes behind schedule, was on the taxiway just before take-off .

"One of my co-passengers saw the smoke and alerted the cabin crew," Shrikanth Barhate, one of the passengers, said.

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Many flyers had to jump from the wing.

After a fire alarm, one cabin crew went into the cockpit to inform the commander as others searched for the source of the fire.

"Then, all of a sudden, we were told to evacuate and the emergency exits were opened,’’ Shrikanth Barhate, one of the passengers aboard the Boeing 737 aircraft, told TOI.

The front and rear exits of the flight were thrown open, he added, but not too many people could use them because the aisle was crowded. "Many passengers , who were nearer the emergency exits in the middle, rushed there," he said. It was there that the passengers realised that there was no inflatable slide to help them get off the aircraft and they would have to jump off the flight.

Many of the flyers first jumped on to the wing and then jumped more than 12 feet to reach the tarmac, suffering fractures and bruises in the process.

Barhate himself suffered minor injuries. "I had taken off my shoes and was relaxing when the flight attendant barked out the evacuation orders. I just jumped off the aircraft with my shoes in hand," he said, adding that an elderly woman who jumped after him apparently sustained serious injuries.