Passengers were left desperately running for their lives from the burning wreckage of a Boeing 737 plane when it skidded off the runway this week.
In dramatic footage of the latest incident surrounding the Boeing 737, the jet could be seen engulfed in flames as passengers fled.
Eleven people were injured, four of them severely, when the plane crashed during take-off shortly after 1AM on Thursday.
There were 78 passengers on board as well as two pilots and four cabin crew.
The Air Senegal flight, which had been chartered from Transair, had been headed for Bamako, Mali, but crashed mid-liftoff from Dakar’s Blaise Diagne airport shortly after 1AM local time, according to reports from the BBC.
A statement from the Minister of Infrastructure and AIr and Lad Transportation confirmed that two pilots and four cabin crew were on board with 78 passengers.
According to reports from the BBC, one of the pilots was among the injured when the Boeing 737-300 crashed.
The plane, which was run by Air Senegal and chartered from the Senegalese carrier Transair, was seen with a large hole in the left engine as firefighters tackled the blaze.
Operations at the airport were halted for several hours while an investigation was opened, but have since resumed.
Neither Air Senegal nor Transair has commented publicly on the incident so far.
The crash is the latest incident to hit Boeing, coming just one day after a FedEx Airlines Boeing 763 skidded on its nose down the runway at Charles de Gaulle Airport after its landing gear malfunctioned.
The aircraft manufacturer has faced scrutiny since January after a terrifying incident in which a side door panel burst out of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max in the middle of a flight.
Boeing is facing a criminal investigation over that incident and other whistleblowers have accused the company of failures in their safety inspections
Two whistleblowers – Joshua Dean, a former quality auditor at Spirit AeroSystems, a supplier for Boeing, and John Barnett – have died since raising their concerns.
Dean had filed a complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), citing what he termed as “serious and gross misconduct by senior quality management of the 737 production line” at Spirit AeroSystems.
The 45-year-old whistleblower succumbed to pneumonia at the start of May, following a rapid progression of influenza B and MRSA infections, per the Telegraph.
Barnett, 62, meanwhile, was found dead in a hotel car park, having reportedly taken his own life. His death came just before he was due to testify in a lawsuit against his former employer.