Passengers flee ‘flames and smoke’ spotted on United Airlines plane before take-off

Passengers have fled a New York-bound plane about to take off from Houston on Monday as they reportedly spotted flames and smoke billowing from the wing.

All 104 passengers were evacuated from the United Airlines flight uninjured, Houston Fire Department confirmed on X.

But there was panic onboard, with the incident coming just days after 67 passengers were killed in an American Airlines plane crash in Washington, DC, and seven passengers were killed in a Medevac plane crash in Philadelphia.

In footage of the most recent United Airlines incident, obtained by CNN affiliate FOX 26, a flight attendant can be heard asking for passengers to stay in their seats.

“No, it’s on fire!” one passenger replies.

United Airlines said the aircraft was evacuated on the runway using slides and stairs, and that passengers on flight 1382 were rebooked onto another flight that afternoon.

Seven killed in Philadelphia crash

It comes after a twin-engine Medevac jet carrying a child patient and her mother back to Mexico crashed in northeast Philadelphia on Friday night, Jet Rescue Air Ambulance spokesperson Shai Gold said.

The mother and child were killed along with the four flight crew members — a pilot, co-pilot, paramedic and doctor — on the Learjet en route to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said.

They were all Mexican nationals.

Gold told CNN the flight planned to stop for refuelling at the Springfield airport before continuing to its final destination of Tijuana, Mexico.

Philadelphia mayor Cherelle Parker confirmed 19 others were injured. One person on the ground was killed.

67 killed in Washington DC crash

That fatal crash came two days after another horrific aviation tragedy — a midair collision involving an American Airlines regional jet and a military helicopter near Washington, DC.

The jet carrying 64 people and the US Army helicopter with three soldiers on board crashed and then plunged into the icy waters of the Potomac River.

There were no survivors.

A preliminary safety report has revealed one of two air traffic controllers typically assigned to the tower at Reagan Washington National Airport left early that night.

From 10am to 9.30pm one controlloer handles planes and the other helicopters. Normally, the responsibilities are only combined after 9.30pm when traffic decreases.

However, on the night of January 29, a supervisor allowed one controller to leave early, leaving one person responsible for both tasks, NBC reported, citing a source familiar with the preliminary FAA report.

This meant that, at the time of the deadly collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet, only one air traffic controller was overseeing both helicopter and plane traffic.

The report said staffing configuration “was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic”.

While FAA guidelines do permit combining roles in certain circumstances, the report does not explain why the supervisor chose to do so on that particular evening.

— With NBC, CNN