Created Tuesday, Jan 28th 2025 16:57Z, last updated Tuesday, Mar 4th 2025 17:46Z
An Air Busan Airbus A321-200, registration HL7763 performing flight
BX-391 from Busan (South Korea) to Hong Kong (China) with 170 passengers and 6 crew and one maintenance engineer, was being pushed back while preparing for departure from Busan when a fire broke out in the back of the cabin. The push back was stopped, and the aircraft was evacuated via slides resulting in 3 serious and 24 minor injuries. The fire was extinguished about 75 minutes later, however, the fire had already broken through the crown of the aircraft. The aircraft was destroyed.
South Korea's Ministry of Transport reported emergency services were doing everything they could to save the A321-200 HL-7763 flight
BX-391. The exact cause of the fire is being investigated.
On Jan 29th 2025 the French BEA stated they are joining the investigation led by the South Korean ARAIB.
On Mar 4th 2025 South Korea's ARAIB released their preliminary report in English summarizing the sequence of events:
At 22:04, HL7763 closed its entry door and was on standby at the ramp to depart to Hong Kong International Airport; the ramp controller informed HL7763 that the expected pushback was rescheduled for 22:33 due to en-route separation.
The captain then informed a ground agent to prepare the pushback at 22:30 and announced this delay to the passengers after a cabin safety briefing.
At 22:14, an "LAV Smoke" warning appeared in the cockpit. Shortly after, a cabin crew reported to the captain a fire in the rear of the cabin, and the captain ordered the cabin manager to proceed with emergency evacuation.
At 22:15, the captain ordered the passengers and crew to "Evacuate, Evacuate" and performed an emergency evacuation checklist with the co-pilot. He then notified the air traffic control unit about the passenger evacuation due to a fire.
The captain was the last to evacuate from the aircraft after checking all passengers had done so.
At 22:17, fire trucks arrived at the scene and confirmed that all passengers and the crew had evacuated. Fire suppression operations began at 22:20 and were completed at 23:31.
The ARAIB reported under findings:
A rear overhead cabin of HL7763 caught fire after passenger boarding was completed and the entry door closed. As the smoke and flame rapidly spread after the fire was first acknowledged, the crew members performed an emergency evacuation.
Emergency evacuation was performed using 7 emergency slides deployed from each door, except for the R1 door.
The aircraft on fire:
Related Flight:
BX391,
Air Busan News
