“Our plane caught fire”: 10 injured as Boeing 737 skids off runway

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A Boeing 737 plane carrying 85 people skidded off a runway at the airport in Senegal’s capital Dakar, injuring 10 people, according to the transport minister and passenger footage showing the plane on fire.

“Our plane just caught fire,” Malian musician Cheick Siriman Sissoko wrote in a Facebook post showing passengers jumping on emergency slides at night as flames engulfed one side of the plane. In the background, people can be heard screaming.

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Transport Minister El Malick Ndiaye said the Air Senegal flight operated by TransAir was heading to Bamako, in neighboring Mali, on Wednesday evening with 79 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew members.

The injured were treated at a hospital, while the others were taken to a hotel to rest.

No further details were immediately available. Boeing did not respond to a request for comment.

The Aviation Safety Network, which tracks air accidents, posted photos of the damaged plane in a grassy field surrounded by firefighting foam on X, formerly known as Twitter. An engine appeared to have broken and a wing was also damaged, photos show.

ASN is part of the Flight Safety Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to promote air travel safety and track accidents.

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