Horror on Unthank as taxi bursts into flames

Students were left running for their lives after their ABC taxi went up in flames.

fire taxi unthank

A group of medical students was forced to flee after a malfunction caused their taxi to catch fire on Unthank Road.

The students were in an ABC taxi on the way to the city when driver Scott Squires noticed smoke coming from behind the dashboard of his Mercedes minibus. He quickly pulled over and got the students out of the taxi and to a safe distance where they witnessed the engine burst into flames.

He then called fire services at around 7.45pm and arranged for the students to get another taxi into the city.

The father-of-four said: “I noticed that there was an electrical fault, but I didn’t tell the passengers. I just pulled over and said ‘We need to get out – we’ve got some sort of problem.’

“I told them to get up the road and then dialled 999 when I saw the flames. As soon as there was smoke, we evacuated the taxi and I had to get the passengers out safely.

“After that point it was out of anyone’s control.”

The taxi burst into flames just minutes after the passengers escaped

One of the passengers – second year medical student Christina Timehin – told The Tab: “We were all in the car on our way to a friend’s birthday dinner having a laugh when the taxi driver suddenly stopped in the middle of Unthank Road. He told us there’d been a malfunction.

“We all started screaming as smoke began to fill the air and we struggled to escape the fumes. We knew it was going to blow any minute.

“We ran down the road terrified – the taxi driver was scared too. Within ten minutes the smoke was everywhere. The orange glow within the car roared and it was a full-on fire.”

Fellow passenger Liban Ahmed added: “The girls were quite upset and they obviously ran away from the car. They kept screaming ‘Jesus Christ, we don’t want to die.’ It was quite frightening.”

The students were moved to a safe distance and watched as the fire grew

A video shot by one of the students moments after the incident shows flames engulfing the taxi and billows of smoke rising as she proclaims “God is great”.

Aisha Bojang, who was also in the taxi, told us: “It was scary. Some of us were shaking. We were so devastated that we decided to get a bus to the city instead of another taxi.

“The driver told us it was a problem with the heater and that he’d had it checked earlier, so maybe a more thorough checking needs to be done next time.

“We’re lucky to be alive.”