American Airlines flight 3023 from Denver to Miami was evacuated after aborting takeoff when a landing gear appears looked to have collapsed and caught fire as it accelerated down the runway around 2:45 p.m. on Saturday.

As the plane reached around 127 knots (approximately 146 mph), a loud boom was reported by passengers and crew, prompting the flight crew to abort the takeoff immediately. Air traffic control communicated that significant smoke was visible, then noting visible flames beneath the aircraft’s rear-left landing gear.

Here’s air traffic control on the ground, “You are actually on fire.”

AA3023 – American Airlines Boeing 737 Max Denver to Miami caught fire on takeoff this afternoon and stopped on the runway. All the passengers evacuated via the emergency slides and all are accounted for.

Audio via @liveatc pic.twitter.com/VPsk2EBVrB

— Thenewarea51 (@thenewarea51) July 26, 2025

All 173 passengers and six crew members were evacuated safely via emergency slides. Video shared by passengers showed dense black smoke emerging from underneath the aircraft. Six people were medically evaluated – five received on-site care, and one was transported to a nearby hospital for minor injuries.

The fire was extinguished shortly after the evacuation. American Airlines explained that a mechanical malfunction involving a tire on the aircraft’s landing gear caused the issue. A ground stop at the airport lasted about one hour, causing more than 300 delays.

VIDEO: American Airlines passengers evacuate after fire incident at Denver airport

Passengers aboard American Airlines Flight AA3023 were forced to evacuate on Saturday at Denver International Airport after a fire broke out due to a landing gear malfunction.

The airline said… pic.twitter.com/tRsAXIydH3

— The Nation Nigeria (@TheNationNews) July 27, 2025

According to American Airlines,

American Airlines Flight 3023 experienced a mechanical issue on take‑off roll at Denver International Airport (DEN). All customers and crew deplaned safely, and the aircraft was taken out of service to be inspected by our maintenance team. We thank our team members for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for their experience. The displaced passengers will depart for Miami on a replacement aircraft later Saturday.

As in many similar incidents there is quite a lot of online chatter about passengers taking their bags with them during the evacuation. It slows down getting off the plane – first, the time spent getting the bag itself, and then additional time and space getting down the aisle and off the aircraft. Those could be seconds that matter (although here they weren’t).

Here’s the thing,

• People aren’t thinking clearly about the potential consequences – they are just defaulting to ‘grab your bag and go’.
  
• They aren’t thinking about others, they are thinking about saving themselves and their belongings. In an emergency it’s hard for most people to shift out of that, without training and practice.
  
• If you don’t take your bag you may be stuck without your belongings – it could be a few hours or it could be days or a week (or in the event of a fire, you may lose them forever)
  
• Your bag might have tough to replace items, or tough to be without items – your computer, phone, wallet perhaps.

Losing those items for a few days or forever, being without ID and payment cards is ultimately going to be fine compared to the risk that someone loses their life. But it’s not an explicit calculation that people are doing.

Whenever these incidents happen, some people call for overhead bins that lock to prevent people from grabbing carry-ons out of the overhead bins (so they’d be limited to their belongings under the seat). The problem is that people would then spend even more time battling the bins themselves, not realizing they weren’t going to be able to get in. That would be worse! And passengers spending time filming inside the cabin is often even more time-consuming. The selfies aren’t going to stop!