Terrified passengers feared they would be ‘smashed to pieces’ as their jet’s engine exploded and the plane plummeted ‘nose first’ nearly 30,000 feet within minutes on a flight over France.
Passengers on flight AF 7721 from Paris to Ajaccio experienced a nightmarish situation when their plane was forced to divert.
Just 30 minutes after takeoff at around 6pm, passengers say they heard a loud bang in the cabin.
Christelle, a woman travelling with her daughter, told RTL she witnessed fire on the wing of the aircraft, saying: ‘It was in flames.’
She added that she felt the plane ‘plummet’, and watched as chaos erupted amongst passengers.
‘The buttons, everything was lighting up, everything was flashing. There was a man who grabbed his children because they thought we were going to crash,’ Christelle said.
Another woman, Joelle, added that she ‘thought we were going to be smashed to pieces’.
She said: ‘I grabbed the phone to call my daughter, I said I’m going to die, I’m going to die,’ Le Parisien reported.