American Airlines passengers land at MIA after cabin fire at SFO prompts evacuation, nearly daylong delay

By JESSICA VALLEJO, TUBEN ROSARIO

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    MIAMI, Florida (WSVN) — Passengers flying from the West Coast finally touched down in South Florida nearly a day after after a fire broke out on an American Airlines flight that was set to leave San Francisco, prompting its evacuation.

American Airlines Flight 2045 was initially supposed to land at Miami International Airport at around 9 p.m. on Friday, but it never got off the ground after, officials said, a passenger’s laptop caught on fire.

7News cameras captured the passengers shortly after they touched down at MIA, Saturday morning.

They described the tense moments inside the cabin while on the tarmac at San Francisco International Airport, early Friday afternoon.

“Some announcement from the pilot said, ‘Fire, fire,’ and, ‘Mayday, mayday, fire, fire,’” said passenger Samyuktha Nair.

“And suddenly people started pushing, and they were like, ‘There’s a fire,’ so the flight attendants told us to remain calm,” said passenger Maria Cheirano.

“We were already smelling strange, like cable burnt,” said passenger Oliver Jankai.

Oliver said the backpack that went up in flames was right under his seat. It belonged to the passenger sitting behind him.

“There was this backpack with the power bank in it, and this it was like a flame up in the air, and at some point, I was jumping up,” he said.

Jan Jankai, Oliver’s son, said he helped his father extinguish the fire as fast as he could.

“We tried to jump on the bag, so we could maybe get out of the fire, but that didn’t help,” he said. “We had to do something, so we just threw it at the back of the plane.”

Thankfully, neither of them where hurt.

One passenger shared video of the commotion and described it as a “light stampede” as people screamed “fire in the back.”

Officials said at least three people were injured during the evacuation, but none seriously.

The remaining passengers were taken to the terminal.

Friday evening, a spokesperson for American Airlines issued a statement that reads:

During boarding of American Airlines flight 2045 with service from San Francisco (SFO) to Miami (MIA) smoke was reported from inside a customer’s bag. The bag was quickly removed by our crew members and all customers exited the aircraft. We thank our crew members for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.

American Airlines

Authorities continue to investigate the cause of the fire, but it may have been due to a lithium-ion battery.

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