The frightening incident happened on a Southwest Airlines plane on Tuesday (Pictures: Andrew Sandino via Storyful)
Flames spewed out the engine of a commercial airplane, convincing a passenger who witnessed it that the plane was going to go down.
A Southwest Airlines plane took off and was ascending when flames began shooting out of one of its wings.
Passenger Coale Kalisek was taking a nap when he woke up after feeling a strange movement.
‘All I know is it started swinging like left to right, and I thought, I’ve been on a lot of flights. I think I fly once or twice a month and I knew that wasn’t normal,’ Kalisek told KHOU.
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‘And so I opened up my window and I’m sitting next to the engine and that whole engine you see like fireballs coming out of it.
‘I’m thinking damn, it’s gonna go down because I fly so much.’
Kalisek recorded more than 12 seconds of the flames spraying out of the right wing of the plane, and his video ends panning back from the window and down to the ground of the plane where his bag is stowed.
The plane fortunately returned and landed safely back at Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas, on Tuesday evening.
A passenger recorded at least 10 seconds of the flames shooting out (Picture: Andrew Sandino via Storyful)
Southwest Airlines told the TV station that the plane was put out of service over a ‘potential mechanical issue’ and declined to comment further.
Kalisek, who was headed to Cancun with his girlfriend, and other passengers were sent to a different plane.
However, Kalisek and his girlfriend were so frightened that they decided not to continue on their trip despite losing thousands of dollars.
Dramatic video shows flames shoot from the plane’s engine near the right wing (Picture: Andrew Sandino via Storyful)
They rented a car and drove back home to San Antonio.
Kalisek concluded that he will not be flying again for some time.
The incident occurred just a few months after an American Airlines plane collided into a flock of geese just after takeoff, causing flames to similarly burst out the right side engine. The plane was forced to turn back and landed safely at John Glenn Airport in Columbus, Ohio.
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A Southwest Airlines plane had flames shooting out its engine shortly after takeoff.