China plane crash: Tibet Airlines’ plane with 122 onboard aborts takeoff, catches fire

A Tibet Airlines plane with 122 onboard caught fire and skidded off the runway after an aborted takeoff in the China’s southwestern city of Chongqing on Thursday morning.

A subsidiary of Air China, the Tibet Airlines was operating an Airbus A319 and is said to be a 10 year old plane, bearing B-6426 registration code.

The incident came less than two months after the deadly crash of a China Eastern Airlines plane led the country’s aviation regulator to launch a safety drive. As per the initial statement by the airline, all 113 passengers and 9 crew members are evacuated and safe, with only minor injuries.

Unverified video on social media show the Tibet Airlines plane, with heavy smoke and flames pouring from the left side of the aircraft as passengers and crew walked away. The fire was later controlled by the emergency services at the airport.

The Airbus A319 is one of the smallest versions of the A320 family and is powered by CFM56 engines from CFM International, a joint venture between General Electric and Safran, according to Airfleets.net.

Tibet Airlines is a regional airline based in Lhasa. It has a fleet of 39 planes, including 28 A319s. What forced pilots to abort the takeoff is still unknown.

On March 21, a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board crashed in mountains in southern China, killing everyone on board. So far there have been few clues about the cause of the accident.