A Boeing 737 touring from Houston to Cancun suffered a serious mechanical failure minutes after take off on Tuesday, forcing the passenger airplane to return to Interest Airport so passengers may safely disembark. Vacationers aboard the Southwest Airways flight witnessed a terrifying scene because the airplane’s proper engine started spewing flames and smoke, as NBC Information reviews.

Southwest Flight 307 had hardly begun its preliminary climb when the crew heard loud banging noises coming from the right-hand engine. Hearth began streaking from the engine shortly thereafter, in keeping with Easy Flying, and passengers aboard the airplane managed to seize the failure mid-flight. One passenger with a window seat simply behind the appropriate wing recorded the flames, per Sky Information:

The flight crew minimize the engine and halted the airplane’s climb at 3,000 ft, then returned to Houston Interest the place a runway was cleared so the airplane may land and passengers may board a substitute plane. All in all, the Boeing 737 was within the air for 16 minutes. Nobody was damage within the incident, nevertheless it’s doubtless that passengers suffered fairly a scare.

These aboard the flight, nonetheless, weren’t the one ones who witnessed the dramatic failure. Airport employee Andrew Sandino seen that the airplane was in bother shortly after takeoff, and he recorded the incident from the bottom, later explaining that the airplane “began taking pictures actually large fireballs out, and the airplane was shifting forwards and backwards, facet to facet, fairly closely.”

Sandino anxious the passenger airplane was in peril of crashing. He went on to say, “I used to be pondering this airplane might crash. If that engine simply utterly explodes and sends shrapnel in every single place, the airplane goes to fizzle out and hit the bottom.” The video footage, captured by Sandino and shared by KHOU11, certainly, may have led many individuals to consider {that a} crash was imminent.

The reason for the failure continues to be unknown, and Southwest Airways hasn’t but elaborated upon what led to the fireplace. The airline has so far solely stated that the airplane suffered a mechanical difficulty “and was taken out of service for assessment.” No passengers have been harmed, and a substitute airplane met vacationers on the runway. The Southwest Airways flight from Houston to Cancun reportedly arrived two and a half hours late. Higher late than by no means.