When Barbara Underwood saw the fire bursting out of the engine during her United Airlines flight home to Hawaii on Saturday, she could think of only one thing to do.
“I turned my texting back on and said my final goodbyes to our children. Now we didn’t know what was going to happen. It was pretty terrifying,” the Kauai woman told Hawaii News Now.
Underwood was flying with her husband from Denver to Honolulu on United Flight 328 when the terrifying incident began to unfold, she told the outlet.
She was looking out the window when she noticed the engine seemed to be shaking.
“And then as I was looking at it, it just blew fire,” she said of the doomed starboard engine.
“And that ring thing around it just flew off and then it was just smoking. And I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t know what’s going to happen next,’” she said.
Most people on board didn’t even seem to realize what had happened, she said.
After the compromised craft returned to the airport, the majority of folks on the flight simply boarded a new United plane and continued on their journey to Honolulu, United said in a statement late Saturday.
Those who didn’t want to travel were given hotel accommodations.
The airline said it’s working with the federal agencies investigating the incident.