Panic and drama unfolded at Lima’s Jorge Chávez International Airport on Monday, October 19, when a LATAM Airlines Peru Airbus A320 caught fire just before it was due to leave for Piura. Videos that spread fast on social media show bright orange flames and thick black smoke pouring from the area of the left engine of flight LA2302, with the fire briefly reaching part of the wing and a nearby tire. One clip was even filmed by a passenger sitting near the wing, showing the blaze right outside the window while people were still inside the cabin. Airport firefighters rushed in and put out the flames, and all passengers were taken off the aircraft with no injuries reported. The plane never took off, and photos and videos suggest it suffered serious fire damage.

LATAM called it an “unforeseen technical event” before takeoff and said all passengers were disembarked as a precaution, with safety as the top priority. What actually started the fire has not been announced, and the airline says the aircraft, an A320-214 registered CC-BFS that had flown in from Iquitos the day before, will go through a technical evaluation. A passenger told Peruvian broadcaster ATV that the captain blamed an aborted takeoff on a left landing gear problem, but that account has not been confirmed and does not explain the flames. Authorities have been reported to be looking into the cause, so it is still unclear whether the problem began in the engine, the landing gear or somewhere else. For now, the key facts are that everyone got out safely and the emergency response worked, but the dramatic footage has left many travelers asking exactly what went wrong.