Fire on American Airlines aircraft causes plane to be evacuated at San Francisco airport

Crew onboard spotted smoke in cabin just before the plane took off from San Francisco International Airport

Passengers on an American Airlines plane were evacuated on Friday afternoon at San Francisco International Airport after a fire broke out inside the cabin, according to the local fire department.

Officials said the fire was extinguished, and that three people suffered minor injuries during the incident. One of the injured was hurt while exiting the plane on an inflatable slide, NBC Bay Area reports.

American Airlines Flight 2045 was scheduled to depart from San Francisco bound for Miami around 1.05pm when staff onboard reported seeing smoke inside the cabin, according to fire officials. The incident occurred while passengers were boarding the aircraft.

An investigation into the the fire is still ongoing. Firefighters were spotted by ABC7’s news helicopter placing a laptop into a tub of water at the scene of the incident.

An American Airlines Boeing 737 departing Los Angeles International Airport. An American Airlines Airbus plane departing from the San Francisco International Airport had to be evacuated on July 12 after a fire broke out inside the plane’s cabin (stock image) (Getty Images)

American Airlines confirmed in a statement that the fire was caused by an overheating laptop brought on board by a passenger.

“During boarding of American Airlines flight 2045 with service from San Francisco (SFO) to Miami (MIA), smoke was reported from inside a customer’s bag,” the airline said in a statement.

“The bag was quickly removed by our crew members and all customers exited the aircraft. We thank our crew members for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”

The passengers who were evacuated from the plane were taken back to the terminal. The aircraft involved in the incident was an Airbus A321neo, according to Flight Aware.