Boeing 737 passenger jet is forced to make emergency landing after ‘micro-explosions’ cause both engines to catch fire during take-off

A Boeing 737 passenger plane was forced to make an emergency landing after “micro-explosions” caused both engines to catch fire during takeoff.

The S7 airline plane carrying 175 passengers was flying from Novosibirsk – Russia’s third largest city – to the capital Moscow.

According to passengers, the fire started while the plane was on the runway.

Small explosions caused both engines of the Boeing 737 to catch fire, leading to a forced landing.

Video taken by a passenger shows the disturbing sight of an engine fire at around 6:30am this morning. During a fire at night, flames can be seen flickering violently through the passenger windows.

“During the climb, sparks and flames suddenly flew from both engines,” Shot media reported.

“The right engine, next to which I was sitting, caught fire while still on the runway, several flames burst out,” said one of the passengers.

“We took off and it was flashing every 10 to 20 seconds.

“Then the second engine caught fire and they burst into flames at the same time.”

The pilots immediately called an emergency landing and landed the plane safely at Novosibirsk Tolmachevo Airport without casualties among passengers and crew.

Emergency services were on high alert for the landing, which occurred about 20 minutes after takeoff, according to those on board.

The captain informed passengers upon landing that both engines had “failed” and the plane needed to be towed from the take-off run after the brakes overheated.

“On landing, the captain reported that the brakes caught fire,” a passenger told ASTRA media.

— All passengers have already left.

They were taken by bus to the terminal and told they would have to wait eight hours for a replacement plane to take them to Moscow.

The cause was engine surging – “violation of gas-dynamic stability with micro-explosions,” reported the Eastern Interregional Investigation Department for Transport of the Investigative Committee of Russia.

According to passengers, the fire started while the plane was on the runway.

This is the second day in a row that such a horrific incident has occurred in Russia.

A day earlier, a Tu-204 cargo plane suffered an “engine explosion” heard from the ground after takeoff from Ulan-Ude, also in Siberia.

The footage shows how the plane caught fire, drained fuel and made an emergency landing.

Female witness Lyubov Pichueva said: “I heard a powerful explosion from above.

“At first I thought it was fireworks, but the sound was too strange.”

She said: “It was very scary.”

The investigation is being conducted by the East Siberian Transport Prosecutor’s Office.

Russia is suffering from an unprecedented wave of aircraft accidents amid signs that Western sanctions are hampering efforts to maintain aircraft and there are problems acquiring spare parts.

One report says that starting in the spring of 2022, airlines will require employees not to record equipment defects in flight logs.

A former Nordwind airline pilot said many pilots rely on “Russian luck.”

Over the eight months of this year, 120 aviation accidents involving civil aircraft of Russian airlines occurred in Russia.

That’s more than double the number in recent years, despite significantly fewer flights as a result of Putin’s war against Ukraine.