An escalator at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport caught fire on Wednesday morning, sending several individuals to the hospital, a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey official told. At around seven in the morning, a small fire in Concourse C sent smoke billowing across Terminal 8 of the airport.
According to New York ABC station WABC, nine persons suffered minor injuries from smoke inhalation, four of them required hospitalization. It was determined that none of the injuries posed a threat to life.
According to officials, about 960 people were evacuated from the station using busses and taken to a different region. When the fire started, one passenger, Nate Peckinpaugh, told that he was ready to catch a flight from New York to Washington, D.C.
“I was catching a flight at the exact terminal we evacuated from. The alarm was going off for a long time and no one was paying attention,” Peckinpaugh stated.
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“Eventually this woman started running around and yelling for someone to help,” he continued.
Using his phone, Peckinpaugh captured the entire event, from the alarm sounding at the station to the passengers being led outside while some shielded their faces from the smoke.
When firefighters arrived on the site, some victims were taken from the jet bridge and others were placed on stretchers in order to receive medical attention. By approximately 8:15 a.m., operations had returned to normal at the port, according to officials, and the fire’s cause is currently being looked into.
