Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Instrument
Distraction; Time Pressure
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe
Flight Crew Returned To Gate; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft
After completing the pushback checklist we called [Ramp] for clearance to push. As we were pushing back we received clearance to start our engines from the ground crew. I had the FO (First Officer) start the number 2 engine. Up until he introduced fuel all indications were normal. Once he introduced fuel it appeared as if there was no light off. N1; ITT; and N2 were all consistent with that of dry motoring. After a couple seconds another ground crew came running over to inform us that we had smoke and flames coming from our number 2 engine. We moved the thrust lever to shut off and turned off the ignition. We dry motored the engine for right around a minute or so at which point the ground crew said it was extinguished. The FO pulled out the emergency checklist card but we agreed it was not needed since there was no indications of a fire and the ground crew said it was no longer there. We got tugged back into the gate. [Ramp] called ARFF (Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting) when they saw the smoke coming from the engine and they arrived right around the same time as we arrived back at the gate. The passengers exited the aircraft and right afterwards a fire fighter came up and told us they sprayed the engine with water because they detected a couple hot spots. There was some sort of malfunction which caused the fuel to be ignited outside of the combustion chamber.
[Report narrative contained no additional information.]
CRJ-200 flight crew reported an abnormal engine start resulted in a return to the gate for inspection.