A plane that was headed to Los Angeles International Airport from Paris, France made an emergency landing in Newfoundland, Canada after experiencing engine damage, officials said Saturday.
The Air France flight diverted to Goose Bay airport, where there is also a Canadian Forces Base, according to the airline. One of the plane’s four engines had “serious damage,” the airline said, without releasing further details about the damage.
The pilot of the aircraft announced just before the emergency landing that the plane had lost an engine, passengers told KTLA. The situation unfolded six hours into the flight, as the aircraft was still flying over the Atlantic Ocean, they said.
One woman who was aboard the flight said she was standing when she heard a startling sound.
“John, my husband, and I were actually standing up near the galley, near the first-class cabin, and there was a tremendous kind of a pop, crashing sound,” Pamela Birkhead told KTLA by phone. “It had the feeling of the plane running into a Jeep or something.”
Still, she said the abrupt noise didn’t “sound like terrorism.”
“It wasn’t an explosion. But it was kind of a mechanical blow-up, if you will,” she said. “But it did not sound like terrorism. It sounded more like a mechanical malfunction.”
The plane landed safely about 12:50 p.m. local time and passengers were helped by officials at the scene.
“The regularly trained pilots and cabin crew handled this serious incident perfectly,” Air France officials said in a statement.
The airline is working to reroute the passengers to Los Angeles and elsewhere. However, not until tomorrow will all passengers on board make it to L.A.
KTLA’s Marissa Wenzke contributed to this article.