Shocking footage has emerged which shows the chaos of passengers being forced to evacuate a plane after a fire broke out onboard.
It’s probably one of our worst nightmares when stepping foot inside an aircraft but it became a reality for the people boarding their flight at San Francisco Airport.
The plane was due to take off for Miami in the evening of July 12 when people noticed that someone’s bag appeared to be on fire.
According to officials, it was actually a passenger’s laptop that set alight on the American Airlines Flight 2045.
A video uploaded to The Press Democrat YouTube channel, @ThePressDemocrat, illustrates the chaos that ensued onboard during the emergency evacuation.
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After finally touching down in Miami the following day, some of the passengers spoke to 7News about their ordeal.
One passenger, Samyuktha Nair, said: “Some announcement from the pilot said, ‘Fire, fire,’ and, ‘Mayday, mayday, fire, fire.'”
Another passenger, Maria Cheirano, recalled: “And suddenly people started pushing, and they were like, ‘There’s a fire,’ so the flight attendants told us to remain calm.”
“We were already smelling strange, like cable burnt,” added passenger Oliver Jankai.
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Jankai revealed the backpack that went up in flames was right under his seat as it belonged to the someone sitting behind him.
He went on to say: “There was this backpack with the power bank in it, and this, it was like a flame up in the air, and at some point, I was jumping up.”
His son, Jan Jankai, said he helped his father extinguish the fire as fast as he could.
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“We tried to jump on the bag, so we could maybe get out of the fire, but that didn’t help,” he said. “We had to do something, so we just threw it at the back of the plane.”
Another passenger described the commotion as a ‘light stampede’ and recalled how people were screaming ‘fire in the back’.
In a statement, a spokesperson for American Airlines said: “During boarding of American Airlines flight 2045 with service from San Francisco (SFO) to Miami (MIA) smoke was reported from inside a customer’s bag.
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“The bag was quickly removed by our crew members and all customers exited the aircraft. We thank our crew members for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”
Authorities are continuing to investigate the cause of the fire, but believe it may have been due to a lithium-ion battery.
Officials reported that three people were injured in the incident but none were seriously hurt.