In short:
All 176 people onboard a plane in South Korea that caught fire have been safely evacuated according to local authorities.
The Air Busan plane was preparing to leave for Hong Kong before the fire started on Tuesday night.
What's next?
It's not yet clear what sparked the blaze.
A passenger plane caught fire before take-off in South Korea, forcing all 176 people on board to evacuate.
The Airbus plane, operated by South Korean airline Air Busan, was preparing to leave for Hong Kong when a fire started in its rear cabin at Gimhae International Airport, South Korea's Transport Ministry said in a statement.
All of the plane's 169 passengers, six crew members and one engineer were evacuated using an escape slide, the ministry statement said.
Three people suffered minor injuries during the evacuation, the country's National Fire Agency said.
The blaze was extinguished by 11:31pm, about 1 hour after firefighters and fire trucks rushed to the scene.
It was not immediately clear what caused the fire.
The Transport Ministry said the plane was an A321 model.
Air Busan operates domestic and international flights to and from Busan.
Officials said the blaze started in the rear of the plane. (Son Hyung-joo/Yonhap via AP)
South Korean officials had urged low-cost airlines to prioritise safety over profit, with calls to increase pilot training, reduce flight times and boost maintenance crews, following the Jeju Air plane crash that killed 179 people at Muan International Airport.
It was one of the deadliest disasters in South Korea's aviation history.
The Boeing 737-800 skidded off the airport's runaway on December 29 after its landing gear failed to deploy, slamming into a concrete structure and bursting into flames.
The flight was returning from Bangkok and all of the victims were South Koreans except for two Thai nationals.
The first report on the crash released on Monday said authorities have confirmed traces of bird strikes in the plane's engines, though officials haven't determined the cause of the accident.
In an audit following the tragedy, South Korean transport officials also found that at seven of the 14 airports in the country, navigational structures didn't meet required safety standards.
It found that barrier structures were made with materials like concrete or steel, making the damage from a potential collision worse.
Officials vowed to devise a plan to address the issues by the end of January.
AP/ABC
