American’s Hong Kong – Los Angeles flight was cancelled today when a piece of equipment caught fire as it was preparing to put cargo in the aircraft’s hold.
The cargo it contained was “non-hazardous,” Thomas said, without providing details. She added that the airline was looking into the cause of the mechanical issue that triggered the fire.
Boarding had not yet started and no passengers or crew on Flight 192 were injured, she said.
The equipment operator, however, received minor injuries.
Here’s video of the cargo hold on fire.
Here’s another angle showing the fire.
Emergency vehicles responded.
American Airlines flight AA192 is operated by a Boeing 777-300ER which had arrived from Dallas Fort-Worth.
I was on this flight in March in paid business class. The incoming flight had run out of fuel and diverted to Macua due to ATC delays in HKG. The delay was handled abysmally. After waiting for a couple of hours in the terminal with no plane there, we were told to go to the airport hotel which is in the terminal, but AA had made no arrangements for us to get through immigration. We had to talk our way through with some skeptical immigration officers who should have been informed of the cancelled flight and weren’t. We could not sleep very well in the as we were on standby to go at any moment, but communication from AA was almost non-existent. We ended up delayed by 17 hours. I complained and got a $200 voucher for future travel. These poor passengers… AA does not seem to have enough (trained) staff in HKG to deal with these mishaps.
That sure looks like the cargo itself and not a piece of equipment that is on fire
It must’ve been a checked-in laptop.