Fire terror for plane passengers

The flight turned back to Athens and made an emergency landing

Passengers have spoken of their terror as they saw flames coming from a jet engine during a flight.

A Boeing 737 from Athens to Luton made an emergency landing at the Greek airport 40 minutes after take-off.

Those travelling on the plane told how they thought they were going to crash and shouts of "fire, fire" were heard from the back of the aircraft.

Engineers are investigating a "technical problem" on Sunday night's Flight EZY 2002, operator Easyjet said.

Adele Berry, from Leeds, said: "There was a big clanging noise, and obviously we were all terrified.

People started shouting, and we were just hanging on for grim death Richard Leigh

"There wasn't a lot of information being given.

"Then people towards the rear of the cabin - we were at the front - said that there was a fire, and were shouting fire, fire.

"We thought we were going to crash. We didn't have a clue what to do, so we just sat there, holding hands and hoping we'd get back down again."

The pilot managed to make an emergency landing after circling over the sea to get rid of fuel.

Flames spotted

"All of a sudden we heard a juddering from the side of the plane, and then you could see what looked like flashing lights outside," another passenger Richard Leigh, from Bolton, said.

"After a couple of seconds you realised that there were flames coming out. People started shouting, and we were just hanging on for grim death."

An Easyjet spokeswoman said an investigation was under way and all passengers had been offered the option of taking an alternative flight to Gatwick or taking the next day's flight to Luton.

"The flight returned from airborne due to a technical problem and passengers who wanted to were transferred to the next available flight to Gatwick 40 minutes later," the spokeswoman said.

"We don't know the nature of the technical problem yet but our engineers are investigating."

The plane's passengers had already seen their flight delayed by 90 minutes because of snow in the UK.