An 11-year-old Airbus A320 caught fire at Almaty Airport (ALA) on Friday, when the FlyArystan aircraft was undergoing scheduled maintenance. Videos of the budget airline’s narrow-body jet show that the blaze was confined to a small area of the airplane’s nose, and fortunately the airport’s emergency services were quick to respond and extinguish the flames.

Air Astana Group, the parent company of FlyArystan, reported that one of its employees was injured following the fire, and they received medical attention and were taken to hospital. The individual was discharged later that same day. At the time of the incident, there were no crew or passengers onboard the aircraft.

Details Of The Almaty Maintenance Fire

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

As reported by Aviacionline, the fire produced smoke near the rear of the aircraft, and flames could be seen as part of a glow in the nose gear bay, which is located below the cockpit. The nose gear bay usually houses equipment like the crew’s oxygen bottles. The Aviation Administration of Kazakhstan (AAK) has yet to publish its incident findings on the fire.

The ‘operational incident’ as described by Air Astana Group occurred during routine maintenance for the aircraft, and when the fire was identified, it was quickly contained and extinguished. The plane has since been withdrawn from service while a full assessment and repair plan for the aircraft is completed.

Maintenance fires, which this likely was, can usually result in aircraft being taken out of service for many weeks or months to ensure that a full structural evaluation is completed, and to understand if the heat reached other vital electrical equipment or hydraulic lines.

Recent Flight History For EI-KBN

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Reviewing flight data, the aircraft did not operate on Friday, August 28, leading up to the fire; however, on Thursday, August 27, the plane operated a total of eight sectors, as detailed below:

Using data from ch-aviation, the airplane at the centre of the incident is that of EI-KBN, a 11.9-year-old A320-200 that first joined FlyArystan back in March 2021. Prior to its life at FlyArystan, the plane operated for Indian carrier Vistara under registration VT-TTE from November 2014, up until being stored in September 2020.

Taking its first flight under French Airbus registration F-WWBR, the plane has serial number (MSN) 6343. Today it is configured in an all-economy class configuration with a capacity for up to 180 passengers. In total, FlyArystan has 15 A320-200s, eight of which were acquired from Vistara. Other aircraft in the fleet include the A320neo.

Say YES! to Travel

Credit: FlyArystan

Founded in November 2018, FlyArystan is Kazakhstan’s first low-cost carrier, which carries the slogan ‘Say YES! to Travel’. The airline is wholly owned by Air Astana, the country’s full-service and flagship carrier. The budget subsidiary operates the A320 family of aircraft as its fleet to simplify operations, and has a comprehensive network of both domestic and international routes.

In 2022, the airline gained a 4-star rating from Skytrax, one of just 12 to be assessed and rated at this level of quality. The airline was also voted in 2023 as the best low-cost carrier in Central Asia.

The localized fire breaking out at Almaty Airport is one of the only recorded incidents for FlyArystan, with other notable events being a runway incursion in February 2024, when one of the airline’s A320s took the wrong taxiway at Mumbai Airport (BOM) and crossed the runway holding line. In January 2025, another aircraft suffered a bird strike on a flight to Astana; the plane was able to land safely with only minor damage to the engine.