Last Friday, at approximately 9:14pm, there were reports of a Delta Airlines Boeing 757-300, catching fire upon landing at its destination. The 757 was completing flight DL-436 from Seattle, Washington to Atlanta, Georgia when the crew of another aircraft reportedly noticed their left hand tire was on fire.

Incident details

Following the first report, an additional crew gave confirmation that the left side of the Delta 757 was on fire. This is according to aviation incident site The Aviation Herald. This was shortly followed by a ground operations vehicle also reporting that the left main gear of the aircraft was on fire.

Proceeding to the intersection of a taxiway, emergency services came out quickly and put the fire out. Runway 09L was closed due to the incident. There were no reports of significant delays at America's busiest airport due to this runway closure.

Quite coincidentally, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport fire crews were training to extinguish fires the day before. It's always nice when your training and preparation gets put to use:

Also according to the Aviation Herald, there were no injuries and the aircraft sustained minor damage.

The aircraft

The aircraft involved in the incident was a Boeing 757-300 with registration N582NW. According to AirFleets.net, the aircraft is 17 years old and took its first flight in 2002. It's entry into service was with Northwest Airlines but became part of the Delta fleet upon the merging of the two carriers.

According to FlightRadar24.com, the aircraft was able to remain in service, flying DL967 from Atlanta to Seattle the very next morning - just 12 hours after the incident.

Delta has a fleet of 16 757-300 aircraft. However, the Delta fleet has far more of the 757-200 variant: An astounding 111 aircraft of the type, according to Wikipedia. However, these aircraft will begin phasing out next year, giving way to the Airbus A321neo.

In similar incident news, a United Airlines Boeing 757-200 took a hard landing upon arrival at Newark Liberty airport on Saturday. The landing was so hard that there was damage to the 757's fuselage and passengers had to evacuate. The full story can be seen here.

Another "fire" incident on the same day

Also on Friday, USA Today is reporting that another Delta flight had to make an emergency landing in Wyoming after a instruments were showing a possible fire in the cargo area of the plane. In this situation, the Delta Airbus A321 was going from Salt Lake City to Detroit but made the diversion to Cheyenne Regional Airport.

After the landing the plane and evacuating passengers, firefighters had a look at the plane but found no signs of fire. Passengers were allowed to re-board and retrieve belongings.