Houma, La.-resident Lauren Fletcher, 57, considers herself an experienced traveler having flown more than 100 times and endured plenty of turbulence and bad weather.
But she called the bird strike that crippled the engine of her Tampa-bound Southwest Airlines flight last week out of New Orleans as the most frightening flying experience by far.
The impact on a bird strike caused one of the Boeing 737's engines to fail, sending smoke into the cabin and forcing the plane to circle back to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport for an emergency landing.
Fletcher and her daughter, Annelle, 21, were seated near the front of Southwest Flight 554. There were 164 passengers on the plane. James Cornett, 50, of Trinity, Fla., was sitting in an exit row near the right wing.
The plane was off the ground barely two minutes when passengers heard a "big explosion," Lauren Fletcher said. "It sounded like a bomb hit the plane."
Bewildered passengers began noticing smoke filtering into the cabin.
After a few minutes that some said felt like an eternity, a pilot announced they'd suffered a catastrophic failure of engine one. Like most commercial jets, the plane has two.
Tom Gregory, of New Orleans, was flying with his parents and his 10-year-old daughter. She'd been quite brave until a woman screamed out: "I don't want to die."
Passengers were scared, Little among them.
Little put his working knowledge of airplanes to use, explaining to the passengers the plane still had one engine and should be able to return to the New Orleans airport.
Still, Amee Cornett texted her son in Tampa: "If something happens, I love you."
As the plane banked back towards the airport, an anxious and intoxicated passenger became combative.
"He got up, put his backpack on and started walking up and down the aisle. He said he was getting off the plane," said Little, whose friend persuaded the man to sit down.
Passengers in front spotted Lake Pontchartrain during descent.
"They thought we were crashing into the water, and they ripped their life vests out from under the seat," he said.
Flight attendants asked everyone to get into a precautionary crash position.
The crew then began a methodically chant: "Heads down. Stay down. Heads down. ... "
"It was eerie," Annelle Fletcher said of the refrain, which continued until the wheels touched ground. Then, the passengers gave their pilots and flight attendants a round of applause.
After taxiing back to the gate, the relieved but shaken passengers disembarked, many in tears.
"(T)here was a lot of hugging and crying," Gregory said, and quite a bit of unexpected camaraderie.
It took Southwest agents five hours to line up another flight to Tampa, but not everyone re-boarded.
Little's wife and friends outvoted him, and the group opted to rent a car to return to Florida. (NOLA.com 12/28/23) Passengers describe terror after plane struck bird | News | nola.com
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