TheCable

According to Shannon Sumrall,spokeswoman for the airport, the aircraft had not yet reached the runway when the fire began.

“The auxiliary power unit caught fire but when they turned the engine back off the fire extinguished itself and the plane was brought back to the gate and all passengers were de-boarded,” she said.

Phil Cobucci, one of the passengers on board, recounted what happened.

“No one heard anything. The plane really just stopped in the middle of the tarmac,” he said.

“The captain said we had a misfire which didn’t really make it sound like the picture I saw (later) when they started popping up on Twitter. There wasn’t any drama. Everyone is fine. It was more like an inconvenience.”

Jason Taylor, a passenger at the airport during the time of the incident said he was standing at gate B7 waiting to board his plane to Salt Lake City when he saw the flames coming from the back of the plane.

“Within five to 10 seconds the fire went out on its own,” he said.

“A lot of the ground workers were running toward the plane. It extinguished pretty quickly and some emergency personnel arrived.

“The ball of fire lasted for several seconds. It freaked a lot of people out. You don’t often see fires on planes.”