Video: Germany-Bound Boeing 757 Catches Fire Mid-Air, Diverted To Italy

Around 300 people on board a Boeing 757-300 had a near-death experience Saturday night when the plane's right engine caught fire shortly after taking off from Corfu in Greece.

The plane, operated by German budget carrier Condor and bound for Dusseldorf, with 273 passengers and eight crew, made an emergency landing at the town of Brindisi in Italy an hour after it left Corfu.

A terrifying video of the fire breaking out mid-air has been widely shared online.

One 18-second clip is particularly scary; it shows sparks from the right fuselage, resembling the flicker of flame when trying to light a cigarette lighter. This continues for 15 seconds.

A second video, posted by aviation news X handle FL360aero, shows the plane flying through what seems to be a flock of birds. In the comment the handle said the aircraft made an emergency landing in southern Italy due to 'engine failure caused by suspected bird strike'.

A German Condor aircraft flying to Düsseldorf made an emergency landing in southern Italy due to engine failure caused by suspected bird strike.

The Condor Boeing 757-330 aircraft (D-ABOK) flying from Corfu (CFU) to Dusseldorf (DUS) started spitting flames right after the… pic.twitter.com/k4b0W0myqg

— FL360aero (@fl360aero) August 17, 2025

NDTV cannot independently verify the video, but flight tracking website shows flight DE3665 taking off from Corfu's Ioannis Kapodistrias Airport at 8.19 pm EEST (10.49 IST) on Saturday.

Forty-three minutes later the plane landed at Casale Airport in Brindisi.

Flight tracking website Flightaware showed the plane diverting to Brindisi.

News reports said the pilot shut down the faulty engine and tried to return to Corfu, before deciding to continue with only the other one still operational. Eventually it landed in Brindisi.

Condor has apolgised for any inconvenience to passengers, who had to spend the night at the airport because of the lack of hotels in the town. They were flown to Dusseldorf the next day.

The Boeing 757 is one of the oldest-serving passenger plane models - and nicknamed 'Atari Ferrari' - in the world and is now in its fifth decade of active service.

This isn't the first time a Boeing plane has caught fire mid-air. Last month a Los Angeles-Atalanta flight operated by United States airline Delta had to return after the left engine erupts into flames.

And on June 12 a London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner operated by Air India crashed seconds after taking off from Ahmedabad. All but one of the 272 people on board died, as did 19 others on the ground after the plane, which lost altitutde suddenly, crashed into a hostel.

Investigations into the reason for the crash are ongoing, with initial reports flagging movement of the fuel supply control switches from the 'RUN' to the 'CUTOFF' positions.