On June 10, 2008 (May 7, 2008 lunar calendar), 44 people were killed when a Sudanese passenger plane caught fire after landing. Photo: Passenger plane caught fire On June 10, 2008, an A310 passenger plane carrying more than 200 people suddenly caught fire when it landed at the capital Khartoum International Airport on the evening of the 10th local time, killing 44 people. The engine caught fire when it landed and taxied. Sudanese officials said that the crashed plane was an Airbus A310 passenger plane of Sudan Airlines, carrying 203 passengers and 14 crew members. The passenger plane arrived at Khartoum Airport from Damascus, the capital of Syria, via Amman, the capital of Jordan. The plane taxied on the runway after landing, and a fire broke out a few minutes later. Mohammed Najib, the head of the Sudanese police, said the plane broke into two pieces. Early television footage provided by Al Jazeera's Arabic channel showed the front half of the plane engulfed in flames. The fire was fierce and thick smoke billowed in the night. Firefighters had rushed to the scene to put out the fire, but under the raging fire, water cannons seemed to be unable to do anything, and the fire did not subside for a while. Fortunately, the fire was finally extinguished. Television footage also showed that an escape ladder in the front half of the plane had fallen. Yusuf Ibrahim, the head of Khartoum airport, said an engine exploded before the plane stopped taxiing, about 10 minutes before landing. Abbas Fadini, a Sudanese lawmaker who was a passenger on board and managed to escape, said: "The fire started inside the plane, from the engine on the right side of the plane, and then spread to the whole plane. The fire spread rapidly, and the plane was quickly burned to the ground. I think the fuel and weather inside the plane made it difficult to control the fire. "The exact cause of the plane's fire has not been determined when the passenger plane landed in bad weather. The police chief, Najib Razak, believes that the bad weather when the plane landed may have been one of the causes of the fire. An anonymous airport staff member told CNN that it rained heavily at the airport earlier in the day, and a dust storm broke out when the plane landed, and visibility was not good. The pilot of a plane that landed before the crashed plane said that the landing was difficult and there was a lot of water on the runway in the airport. The pilot said that when a dust storm blows up, if there are dust particles entering the plane's engine, it can cause a fire to burn. A passenger who managed to escape told local television that the first time the plane tried to land at Khartoum airport, the captain suddenly said "we can't land because of bad weather". The plane then diverted to the eastern Sudanese city of Port Sudan. About an hour later, the plane returned to Khartoum and landed again. "When the pilot tried to land, the plane crashed". However, Ibrahim, the head of the airport, denied that bad weather was the cause of the crash. He said the plane "landed safely" and the pilot also asked the ground control center about the landing path. "Whether the fire was due to technical problems, we can't be sure yet."