Passengers evacuated as plane catches fire at Fort Lauderdale airport

A plane caught fire on the tarmac of an airport in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Thursday, causing several injuries and prompting passengers to evacuate the plane, officials said.

The Dynamic International Airways flight apparently caught fire while taxiing for departure from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport at around 12:45 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement, which noted that the plane was bound for Venezuela.

"An aircraft taxiing behind the Boeing 767 reported that fuel was leaking from the aircraft before the fire started," the FAA said in a statement. "Passengers evacuated via slides onto the taxiway."

A Broward County Sheriff's Office spokesman tweeted that there were "several injuries" in the blaze. Posts on social media showed heavy smoke outside the airport, which is located about 30 miles away from Miami.

The airport said Thursday afternoon that it was closed due to the situation with the Dynamic flight. The airline individually responded on Twitter to people inquiring about the incident, writing that the plane had a problem during departure and passengers were evacuated.

Les Abend, a veteran commercial pilot, told CNN that it appeared the fire began in an engine area, but any possible fuel leak - a potential source of a fire - would have likely occurred after the pre-flight inspection because such a malfunction would have been "obvious" to the crew.

He praised the fast evacuation procedures.

"It looks like the crew did exactly the right thing," he said.

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport says on its site that it sees an average of 621 commercial flights each day on 30 airlines. Dynamic Air began service to Caracas in July 2015. During the last fiscal year, the airport saw a total of 26.3 million passengers.