A plane carrying 126 people caught fire after it was forced to crash land at Miami International Airport when its front landing gear failed.

The Red Air flight was arriving from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on Tuesday when it skidded along the runway, ripped through a communications tower and came to a stop on the grass.

Video and images shared on social media showed the MD-82 plane with its nose smashed to pieces and a fire under its left wing.

Passengers could be seen evacuating by walking along the plane’s right wing and running away to safety.

Three people were taken to hospital to be treated for minor injuries.

TV news images showed the plane appeared to have come to rest beside a runway and the aircraft and an area all around it were apparently doused with white firefighters’ chemicals.

At least three firefighting vehicles were positioned nearby.

“I thought I was going to die, actually,” Paola Garcia told CBS Miami. “There was an old man next to me and I was hugging him. It was horrible.

“We were bumping from side to side and all the windows like break and then everything’s fine. Then the people start running and running and I like jump and start running because there was fire and all that.”

Airport officials said in a tweet that the collapse of the front landing gear in the nose of the aircraft appeared to be the cause of the fire.

The National Transportation Safety Board posted on Twitter that a team would investigate the fire.