The Venezuela-bound Dynamic International Airways Boeing 767 that caught fire sits on the run-way at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

By Ken Kaye and Linda/Trischitta/Sun Sentinel/TNS

A team of federal investigators will focus on why a Dynamic International Airways Boeing 767 suffered a fuel leak, leading to a major fire while the plane was on a taxiway at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
While the investigation will encompass all aspects of the plane’s maintenance history, it likely will zero in on whether there was a fuel line problem or whether the plane was properly refueled prior to the accident on Thursday.
“They will be looking at maintenance records and talking to the people who had worked on the plane,” Kent George, the airport director, said yesterday. “They might even talk to passengers.”
George noted that no fire broke into the passenger cabin but rather erupted on the left wing and engine of the twin-engine jetliner on Thursday.
Of the 101 passengers onboard, 15 were injured during the emergency evacuation, sliding down chutes. A handful of other occupants suffered injuries as well, and two remained hospitalized on Friday.
Dynamic Flight 405 had intended to fly to Caracas, Venezuela, on Thursday. But as the plane was taxiing to the airport’s north runway, the pilots in a jetliner behind it noticed fuel was leaking from the 767’s left wing.
The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a team of four accident investigators to Fort Lauderdale on Friday to determine the exact source of the leak.
One possible source could be the refuelling port on the underside of the wing, as potentially it was not properly secured or the mechanisms that hold fuel in the wing tanks failed, aviation experts said.
An indication that the leak was substantial: About 45 to 50 gallons of jet fuel spilled onto the taxiway, George said. The fuel damaged the asphalt on the taxiway, forcing that area of the airport to be closed off until repair crews can “mill down and replace” the asphalt in that area, he said.
To ultimately determine the cause of the leak - and fire - George said the Safety Board will review the plane’s black boxes, interview the pilots and talk to the mechanics who last inspected the airliner.
“They have to be very thorough,” George said. “They’ll look at all the operating systems of the aircraft.”
In all, the Boeing 767-200, the model that caught fire, holds up to 16,700 gallons - or almost 57 tons - of jet fuel in its wing tanks.
Albert Johnston, a retired captain for a major airline, said the leak could have occurred in any fuel line leading from the fuel tanks to the engine.
“The aircraft carries a lot of fuel, and more than likely, it was under pressure,” he said. “There are several fuel pumps that increase the pressure to the engine.”
Because of that pressure, he added, the fuel was probably spraying out rather than dribbling.
The safety board will check whether the pilots encountered any kind of fuel problem while flying the plane to Fort Lauderdale. Johnston said because the ground crew didn’t notice a fuel leak while the plane was at the gate, the problem probably developed after the jetliner started taxiing.
The accident could have been catastrophic had the jet taken off with a fuel leak, Greg Feith, a former crash investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, told Reuters.
“Once the aircraft is airborne, it becomes a flying blowtorch,” Feith said. “The fire intensifies and you don’t know what system or structure it’s going to burn through.”
Fire could damage a wing and fuselage, or cripple hydraulic and electronic control systems, Feith said, potentially making an emergency landing impossible. It could also ignite fuel tanks in the wings, especially if fuel vapour were present, he said.
The airport reopened about three hours after the incident, and both its runways were operating yesterday, officials said.
Johnston, of Davie, who flew the Boeing 767 for about five years, said the pilots have no direct indication of a fuel leak, such as a cockpit indicator light. Rather, they would only see the fuel tank gauges starting to go down.
The leak might have been the result of a maintenance problem or simply from a part failing from fatigue. “Parts get worn; no system is infallible,” Johnston said. “It’s a rare thing, but it does happen.”
Although considered rare, fires have broken out on airliners operating out of US airports about 85 times since 1965, according to safety board records.
Most were deemed minor incidents, such as one where a fire started inside an engine housing on a Delta 747, shortly after it took off from Atlanta in September 2014. The plane landed safely and no one was hurt.
Some are considered potentially disastrous. In September, fire erupted in the engine of a British Airways Boeing 777 as it was taking off from Las Vegas. Several of the 167 passengers and crew members on board were injured during the emergency evacuation after the plane landed.