We boarded around 3.30pm, Vegas time, and I immediately fell asleep because I’ve been here for about five or six days.
I heard we’d been taxiing for quite a while. I wasn’t very conscious of the plane taking off – and then very quickly it shuddered to a halt.
It was going fast, it wasn’t meandering, it was about to take off, so it was going quickly.
A few people started running down the plane from the back, a few people stood up, and the staff were all saying, “Keep seated,” reassuring people. But I don’t think they’d realised what was happening.
Just evacuated on a British Airways flight at Las Vegas airport after an engine caught fire. Don't think anyone hurt pic.twitter.com/Y986xW9Wzy
— Jacob Steinberg (@JacobSteinberg) September 8, 2015
Me and my friend kept trying to see the wing, but we were on the right side of the plane. But you could smell the smoke from the outside, you could see it. I heard later that a couple of windows had melted.
A couple of minutes later the stewards told us to evacuate – that sparked a lot of panic. I went to the back of the plane, they had opened it up and put down the slide. One of my friends went down towards it and loads of smoke started coming in. The cabin attendant was trying to make people go out that way, and when she realised there was smoke coming in there was a look of panic on her face.
They opened the back door and slide went down and smoke started coming in plane, followed by mad dash to front. A lot of panic
— Jacob Steinberg (@JacobSteinberg) September 8, 2015
We were fairly slow in getting out. We went to the right hand side and slid down the slide towards the runway, and just ran away from the plane.
Firefighters were very quickly on the scene, one woman was being treated for smoke inhalation.
There are people here who are very shook up. I saw on guy in his 20s with his head in his hands on the bus, a bit overwhelmed with what had happened. I saw one woman with a baby, a small toddler.
I had taken my shoes and socks off, so I was fairly glad I was able to get them back on because it was very hot outside, even without the fire.
A few have cuts and bruises from the slide down. They've been bandaged up. One young woman was taken away by paramedics, but looked ok.
— Jacob Steinberg (@JacobSteinberg) September 9, 2015
The pilot came out after and was actually applauded by all the passengers. He said he’d been doing this for 18 years and this had never happened before.
I couldn’t tell you how near death that was but it wasn’t a great situation – the plane was on fire.
Honestly, I’m here with five or six mates, and we were kind of laughing and joking afterwards. That was the adrenaline kicking in. And now that that’s gone we’re sort of shaken.
Video of the aftermath here pic.twitter.com/3Uxnmz0ltr
— Jacob Steinberg (@JacobSteinberg) September 9, 2015
Jacob Steinberg was talking to Michael Safi
