A Korean Air Boeing 777-300 experienced an engine fire and aborted takeoff from Tokyo Haneda International Airport May 27. The 302 passengers and 17 crew members on flight KE2708 bound for Seoul’s Gimpo Airport in Korea were evacuated by emergency chute from the aircraft. Unconfirmed reports in local media cite several passengers as suffering minor injuries during the evacuation. All traffic was immediately suspended at the airport, but operations resumed shortly after the fire was extinguished by emergency response vehicles. A Korean Air spokesperson said the engine no.1 (left hand wing) caught fire, but was extinguished shortly after the takeoff was aborted at around 1600 hrs. local time. Local media reported the incident disrupted at least 200 flights, causing delays and cancellations for some 50,000 passengers.<br/>
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A French judge postponed a trial Friday against Air France workers accused of tearing the shirts off airline executives in a violent protest, apparently fearing it could enflame tensions amid nationwide strikes over France’s labor system. The shirt-ripping incident last October, caught on camera and viewed worldwide, came to epitomize the extreme end of antagonistic French labor relations. It came at a meeting where the executives announced further job cuts after years of belt-tightening at the airline, prompting a rampage by a small group of union members. Air France lawyers decried the delay in the trial, arguing that the exceptional violence should be punished as soon as possible, and not linked to the larger protest movement currently under way. Defense lawyers argued the case was too important and complex for a single day of proceedings. The trial will resume over two days in September.<br/>