WATCH: Plane cabin fills with smoke moments before emergency landing

Horrified passengers of Hawaiian Airlines were lucky to escape disaster after their cabin filled with smoke during a flight to Honolulu on Thursday. Their plane made an emergency landing before the crew evacuated all on board.

Seven passengers, five adults and two children, were hospitalized after suffering “smoke-related symptoms,” the airline said in a statement.

Smoke began filling the cabin 20 minutes before the flight from Oakland, California landed in Honolulu, Hawaii. The captain declared an in-flight emergency and notified airport personnel that there could be a fire on board, Hawaii News now reports. 

“I was scared,” passenger Lucky Cara said. “It just kept getting worse and worse, and there were a few people that were crying, but they settled down.”

Oxygen masks were not given to passengers as the crew didn’t want to risk pumping oxygen into the cabin in case there was a fire, Hawaiian Airlines CEO John Snook said. Passengers were given wet cloths to breathe through. 

The aircraft’s emergency slides were used to evacuate the passengers once the plane landed at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport. 

Hawaiian Airlines later said in a statement that “a seal failed in the aircraft’s left engine, causing oil to leak onto hot parts of the plane’s engine and air conditioning pressurization system, resulting in smoke in the cabin,” the Star Advertiser reports. It added that “the performance of the engine was not affected” and apologized to the passengers affected in the incident.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!