When Barbara Underwood saw fire burst from the plane’s starboard engine on her United Airlines flight to Hawaii on Saturday, she could think of only one thing.
“I turned my text message back on and said my last goodbye to our children. Now we didn’t know what would 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 looked out the window when she noticed the engine seemed to vibrate.
“And when I looked at it, it just blew fire,” she said of the doomed starboard engine.
And that ring thing around it just flew away and then it just smoked. And I was like, ‘Oh my god, I don’t know what’s going to happen,’ she said.
Most of the people on board didn’t even seem to realize what had happened, she said.
After the compromised vessel returned to the airport, most of the people on the flight simply boarded a new United plane and continued their journey to Honolulu, United said in a statement late Saturday.
Those who did not want to travel were given hotel accommodation.
The airline said it is working with the federal agencies investigating the incident.