London City Airport closed for two hours after engine explosion and fire

Four people slightly injured

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Passengers safely evacuated Swiss flight LX437 from London City Airport Thursday around 15:00 after a fire broke out. The airport was closed for a little over an hour, according to City Airport, as a result of the fire.

The airplane, an Avro RJ100 (Jumbolino), was carrying 74 passengers and a crew of four, the airport has confirmed. Four people were treated at the airport for minor injuries, but Swiss and the airport have not indicated how they were injured.

The plane was revving its engines to take off when passengers heard a loud pop, says a Vevey man who was on the flight. He contacted GenevaLunch this evening while stranded in London because the flight was cancelled. “It sounded like somebody fired a shotgun,” he say, “and then someone stood up and said, there’s a fire!”

The emergency lights came on as soon as the engines fired, he says, and a certain amount of panic broke out. He was toward the front of the plane and could hear the pilot saying there was an emergency. The flight attendant “was pretty much useless” he says and there was a certain amount of panic on the plane initially, but passengers used the emergency slides to leave the plane.

“You could see flames coming out of an engine.”

Passengers were “mostly left to fend for themselves” afterwards and he, like others, booked himself onto a flight tomorrow.

Swiss and Lufthansa were struggling today to cope with cancelled flights to and from Germany, where some Lufthansa crew were on strike.

Ed.  note – I’ll be adding photos shortly.