Video: Plane bursts into flames mid air after take-off from Miami airport

A witness saw sparks shooting from a cargo plane as it made an emergency landing at Miami International Airport shortly after takeoff.

The aircraft landed safely on Thursday night “after experiencing an engine malfunction soon after departure," a spokesperson for Atlas Air said in a statement on Friday. “The crew followed all standard procedures and safely returned to MIA."

The plane was “shooting sparks" as it flew overhead, said Melanie Adaros, who was out for a walk with her mother and was about to turn into her home, when she heard and saw an approaching plane.

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“There’s always planes flying overhead, but they’re little planes,” she said. “But this didn’t sound like a little plane. It sounded very low, so I turned ... You always see a plane going up or going down. This one was just at a steady level and it was shooting sparks. It was very surreal.”

She recorded it with her phone, wondering "is it falling? Is it going to explode?” she said. “It seemed to do a big, wide, swerving turn” in the direction of Miami International Airport, she said.

The Boeing 747 was on its way to Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport in Puerto Rico when the crew reported an engine failure, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement Friday. Atlas Air Flight 95 then returned safely to Miami International Airport, the agency said.

Atlas will conduct an inspection to determine the cause, the spokesperson said.

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