A plane carrying 126 people caught fire after it was forced to make an emergency landing at Miami International Airport due to malfunctioning front landing gear.
The jet is captured on film skidding on its belly and slamming into its nose before coming to a rest and catching fire on its left wing.
Tuesday, when arriving from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, the Red Air jet skidded along the runway, tore through a communications tower, and landed on the grass.
Images and videos published on social media showed an MD-82 aircraft with a shattered nose and a fire under its left wing.
Passengers were observed exiting the aircraft by walking along with the right-wing and sprinting to safety.
Three individuals were transported to the hospital for treatment of minor injuries.
The jet looked to have landed next to a runway, and it and the surrounding area were sprayed with white chemicals by firefighters, according to images broadcast on news.
“I truly believed I was going to die,” Paola Garcia told CBS Miami. “An elderly man was standing next to me, and I was hugging him. It was dreadful.
“As we were being jostled from side to side, the windows began to shatter, and then everything was OK. Then people start running and running, and I jump and start running because there was a fire and everything.”
Airport officials stated in a tweet that the apparent cause of the fire was the collapse of the aircraft’s nose landing gear.
On Twitter, the National Transportation Safety Board announced that a team would examine the fire.
