American Airlines Boeing 767-300, registered N345AN, operating flight AA383 from Chicago to Miami with 161 passengers and 9 crew, aborted its take-off and has caught fire.
The flight was well down runway 28R when the pilots rejected the takeoff because of a suspected uncontained engine failure and fire.
Crew initiated an emergency evacuation and 20 people were taken to hospital with minor injuries.
The 767-300 sustained significant damage.
Many passengers filmed the evacuation.
Once again passengers have risked their safety and that of their fellow passengers by insisting on taking their carry-on baggage with them.
Video of the inside of the 767 taken during the evacuation shows many baggage bins open while passengers can be seen with their carry on baggage.
Read: Grab for bags could cause airfares to triple
Jet engines are designed with a containment ring to prevent the shrapnel generated by disintegrating parts from tearing through the cabin or fuel tanks but in rare cases this does not work.
A source told Reuters the failure in this case was so intense a disk from the CF-6 engine hit a nearby building roof.
The news agency said US National Transportation Safety Board officials were looking for clues as to whether the fault lay with the engine, with maintenance or a freak event such as debris on the runway entering the engine.
GE spokesman Rick Kennedy told it on Saturday that the plane engine dated from the 1980s or 1990s and had been serviced by the airline.
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