American Airlines passengers feared for their lives Thursday when a bird flew into the engine of their outbound LaGuardia flight — forcing the plane to make an emergency landing at another airport in the city.
Flight 1722 took off from LGA just after 7:20 p.m. and was scheduled to land at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina in less than two hours – but the plane had barely passed the coast of Long Island, But it was diverted and forced to land. According to flight radar, land at JFK International Airport.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said a bird hit the engine of an Airbus A321, causing severe damage, rendering the right propeller completely useless.
The Port Authority said the plane – which was then powered entirely by its secondary engine – landed safely at JFK without incident.
Surreal video, filmed by a passenger, shows the moment the bird ends up in the plane’s engine.
clip PostEon d x The split-second shows the engine sucking up the malfunctioning wing of the flyer, which appears to ignite and burst into flames as the plane tilts to the side.
Passengers on the grounded flight told The Post that they saw the flames and thought the worst would happen as they waited for their bags at the baggage carousel in JFK’s Terminal 8.
“I thought I was going to die,” said Amy Stamper of Tennessee.
“I was scared. I thought I was going to die. There were some little explosions. And there was a fire,” Stamper said in disbelief.
Another passenger, who requested to remain anonymous, expressed similar sobering sentiments.
“I was right by the wing and I saw it. I saw two flames in the sky… I thought I was going to die. I prayed. For about 30 seconds I thought I was going to die,” the man said.
Eric Halili, 43, was also shocked by what went wrong with the flight.
“I think it was a very painful experience and what was worse was that we had to wait for over an hour to get our bags,” Halili complained.
“All you wanted was for the day to end and it didn’t end.”
Halili, who was in New York for work, said he “absolutely” feared for his life.
The father of two told The Post that all he thought about were his children and his wife in the moments when it occurred to him that Flight 1722 might crash.
“That was the first thing that came to my mind – the situation of him not being able to come home,” Halili said sadly.
Holding a bag of goodies from Junior’s Cheesecake, Halili said he was disappointed he wouldn’t be able to get a gift for his wife Thursday night.
MissLady, 26, was flying back home to Florida via Charlotte after spending her honeymoon in New York with her newly-wed husband and, by a stroke of luck, had to board a diverted plane.
“I actually missed my first plane. This is another one,” he told The Post. “This is what God decided.”
“There were people who were scared. I was a little scared… it felt like a car was going to overturn. A little rocking, said Misslady. “At first I didn’t think much about it. But then I saw other people around me (reacting) and thought, ‘This could be bad.’
The grateful passenger, who gave only his first name, said American Airlines flight attendants did a good job of calming upset passengers.
No injuries were reported as a result of the incident, American Airlines said in a statement.
The flight to Charlotte is scheduled to depart again Friday morning and customers have been provided hotel accommodations for the night, according to the airline.
The Federal Aviation Administration did not respond to The Post’s request for comment by the time of publication.
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