Saudi soccer team land safely in Rostov after apparent engine fire

Saudi Arabia’s national soccer team landed safely in Rostov-on-Don, Russia on Monday evening, after an apparent engine fire on the plane carrying the players to a World Cup match. Russia’s aviation watchdog Rosaviatsya said that during the landing there was a brief fire on one of the engines and that it would investigate the incident, Interfax reported. Social and Saudi media footage also appeared to show one of the engines catching fire, but a spokesman for airline Rossiya denied a fire had occurred and said the fault was due to a bird strike. The team were travelling on a Rossiya Airbus A319 from St Petersburg to Rostov-on-Don, where they are due to play their second Group A match against Uruguay on Wednesday. As it came in to land, the plane “suffered a technical fault with one of its engines, with a bird getting caught seen as the preliminary cause,” a Rossiya airlines spokesman said. Reports of a fire in one of the engines were incorrect, the spokesman added. The Saudi federation released photographs of the players smiling and looking calm as they boarded a bus for the Mercure Hotel in central Rostov. “All the Saudi national team players are safe, after a technical failure in one of the airplane engines ... and now they’re heading to their residence safely,” it said in a statement on Twitter.<br/>