Dramatic video captured the moment flames shot out of an engine of a Southwest Airlines
LUV,
flight from Texas to Mexico — leading one terrified passenger to think, “Damn, it’s gonna go down!”
Flight 307 was climbing out of William P. Hobby Airport in Houston en route to Cancún on Tuesday evening when the right engine erupted in flames, KHOU reported.
“All I know is it started swinging like left to right, and I thought, I’ve been on a lot of flights,” passenger Coale Kalisek told the outlet.
“I think I fly once or twice a month and I knew that wasn’t normal 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,” said the San Antonio man, who was headed to the Mexican resort with his girlfriend.
“I’m thinking, Damn, it’s going to go down,” Kalisek said.
The flight “returned to the airport to check out a potential mechanical issue. The aircraft landed safely and was taken out of service,” Southwest told KHOU.
“A different aircraft is being brought in to continue the flight to Cancún. We appreciate our Customers’ patience as we work to get them to their destinations as quickly as possible,” the statement added.
But Kalisek and his girlfriend decided to stay behind after the scary 27-minute flight — losing the thousands of dollars they had paid for the trip, the outlet reported
Instead, they rented a car and drove the 200 miles back to San Antonio.
A version of this report appeared at NYPost.com.
From the archives:
‘We want to live in Mexico’: Should we sell our property in the U.S. before prices drop, and purchase our dream home overseas?
Read this before taking an Uber in Cancún, where violence between taxi drivers and ride-share apps is heating up
State Department issues alert on travel to Mexican state Quintana Roo after jet ski shooting incident in Cancún
Amid water shortages and power outages, Texans cry foul over price gouging for bottled water, gas and $1,000 hotel rooms
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