Lamborghini catches fire at Chennai airport, engine damaged

Chennai: Tense moments prevailed at the airport's cargo complex on Monday when a Lamborghini car, kept ready for loading on to an Emirates cargo.
Sources said the Lamborghini Gallardo car was on a trolley when the mishap occurred around 6.30am. The engine was gutted.
Airport officials said the car (EX 431 GK), which was brought from Milan, Italy, for a demonstration at the Madras Motor Sports Club's track at Irungattukottai last month, was worth around Rs 2 crore. Five such cars had been brought for the show.
While the Airports Authority of India and the airline claimed that a little smoke had emerged from the car and that it had not caught fire, the police said that the engine of the car had been completely destroyed in the fire.
Sources said that two Lamborghini cars had been brought to the airport on Sunday evening to be taken to Milan on an Emirates cargo flight.
One of the cars had half a tank of fuel. Staff at the air cargo complex allegedly kept the vehicle idling throughout the night to burn the fuel as cars can be loaded on to aircraft only with an empty fuel tank.
A senior AAI official said: "The smoke activated fire sprinklers inside the cargo complex. AAI had handed over the car to the airline for loading and it was in the air cargo complex when the accident happened."
However, the reason for the fire is not known.
24/11/09 V Ayyappan/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Nov 2009, Safety Nov 2009