An Airbus passenger plane traveling from Busan, South Korea, to Hong Kong caught fire before takeoff, forcing 176 people to evacuate using its inflatable slides, officials said on Tuesday evening.

A passenger plane has caught fire before takeoff at an airport in South Korea, but all 176 people on board have been safely evacuated.

An Airbus plane has caught fire at an airport of South Korea's city of Busan, forcing the evacuation of all 176 people on board, fire authorities say. They say three people were injured as they were escaping the Air Busan aircraft on inflatable slides in the south-eastern airport on Tuesday evening.

The fire broke out in the back of the cabin, officials said. All 176 people on board, including passengers and crew members, were evacuated, some with minor injuries.

The first report on last month’s Jeju Air crash in South Korea has confirmed traces of bird strikes in the plane’s engines, though officials haven’t determined the cause of the accident that killed all but two of the 181 people on board.

Authorities have suggested that migratory bird strikes were the cause of last month's deadly plane crash in South Korea, according to multiple reports.

The exact cause of the Jeju Air crash remains unclear, and the investigation is complicated because the black boxes stopped recording four minutes before impact.