Boeing 737 catches fire and skids off the runway at a Senegal airport, injuring 10 people
Dakar, May 9: A Boeing 737-300 plane carrying 85 people skidded off a runway at the airport in Senegal's capital, injuring 10 people, according to the transport minister, an airline safety group and footage from a passenger that showed the aircraft on fire.
“Our plane just caught fire,” wrote Malian musician Cheick Siriman Sissoko in a post on Facebook that showed passengers jumping down the emergency slides at night as flames engulfed one side of the aircraft at the airport in Dakar. In the background, people can be heard screaming.
Transport Minister El Malick Ndiaye said the Air Sénégal flight operated by TransAir was headed to Bamako, in neighbouring Mali, late Wednesday with 79 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew.
The airport reopened on Thursday morning after closing overnight.
The injured were being treated at a hospital, while the others were taken to a hotel to rest. Boeing referred a request for comment to the airlines.
It was the third incident involving a Boeing airplane this week. Also on Thursday, 190 people were safely evacuated from a plane in Turkey after one of its tires burst during landing at a southern airport, Turkey's transportation ministry said.
The company has been under intense pressure since a door plug blew out of a Boeing 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January, leaving a gaping hole in the plane.
The Federal Aviation Administration in February gave Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to fix quality problems and meet safety standards for building planes after the accident.
The incident has raised scrutiny of Boeing to the highest level since two crashes of Boeing 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.
About a dozen relatives of passengers who died in the second crash have been pushing the US government to revive a criminal fraud charge against the company by determining that Boeing violated terms of a 2021 settlement.
In April, a Boeing whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, testified at a congressional hearing that the company had taken manufacturing shortcuts to turn out 787s as quickly as possible that could lead to jetliners breaking apart.
The Aviation Safety Network, which tracks airline accidents, described the plane as a Boeing 737-38J.
The network published photos of the damaged plane in a grassy field, surrounded by fire suppressant foam, on X, formerly known as Twitter. One engine appeared to have broken apart and a wing was also damaged, according to the photos.
ASN is part of the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group that aims to promote safe air travel and tracks accidents.
🚨🚨Les faits se sont déroulés à 01h 14 minutes. Le ministre El Malick Ndiaye a ordonné au Bureau d’Enquete et d’Analyse (BEA) d’ouvrir une enquête pour déterminer les causes de l’accident. pic.twitter.com/sJTtfMmH2s
— mcsenegal1 (@McSenegal221) May 9, 2024
Transair Senegal Boeing 737-300 (6V-AJE, built 1994) was seriously damaged when it overran the landing runway at Dakar-Intl Airport(GOBD), Senegal. The left wing and engine caught fire but all 73 passengers were able to evacuate alive. There was unspecified number of injuries.… pic.twitter.com/SysgTSL3b8
— JACDEC (@JacdecNew) May 9, 2024
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Kerala HC upholds death sentence in 2016 Dalit law student rape-murder case
Kochi (PTI): The Kerala High Court on Monday upheld the death sentence given by a sessions court to the perpetrator, Ameerul Islam, in the 2016 rape and murder of a 30-year-old Dalit law student in the state.
A division bench of the high court upheld the death penalty, dismissing the appeal filed by the convict challenging the sessions court verdict. The confirmation of the capital punishment was also made based on the death sentence reference from the sessions court.
Islam was charged with raping and murdering the woman at Perumbavoor on April 28, 2016.
He brutally assaulted the woman, who hailed from a poor family, using sharp-edged weapons before murdering her at her house.
In 2017, the Ernakulam Principal Sessions court awarded the death penalty to Islam, a migrant labourer from Assam, for committing the murder.
Islam was found guilty by the sessions court under various sections of the IPC, including 449 (house trespass to commit an offence punishable with death), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement), 302 (murder), 376 (rape), and 376 (A) (causing death or causing the woman to be in a persistent vegetative state while committing rape).
The Special Investigation Team that probed the case used DNA technology and verification of call record details to prove Islam's role in the crime.
Islam, who had left Perumbavoor soon after committing the crime, was arrested from Kancheepuram in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, 50 days after he committed the gruesome crime.
More than 100 police personnel questioned over 1,500 people in the case.
Fingerprints of over 5,000 people were also examined by the SIT personnel, who went through over 20 lakh telephonic conversations before tracing Islam.
