Two hundred people on a Delta red-eye to Moscow spent a terrifying hour circling JFK Airport on Sunday night after their plane blew an engine on takeoff.
"I was sure that everything was okay but some people were crying," said passenger Irine Dokuchaeva, 37, after the plane made an emergency landing.
Capt. E.C. Anderson said he lost his left engine right after takeoff, when the Boeing 767 with 193 passengers and 11 crew aboard was just 400 feet in the air.
"It just went bang," Anderson said. "I've been doing this a long time and I have never seen anything like that."
Airport officials said the pilot reported a "possible bird strike," but Anderson told the Daily News he didn't know what killed his engine.
"It will take them awhile to figure out what happened," he said.
Numerous witnesses dialed 911 to report flames or sparks as Delta Flight 30 lifted into the sky at 4:40 p.m., leading to early - unfounded - fears that the plane was on fire.
The jet, which can fly on one engine, was loaded with 60,000 tons of fuel for the nine-hour flight to Russia. Anderson said they had to circle for about an hour dumping fuel so the plane would not be too heavy to land.
"The captain said there was a little problem. He said, 'Don't worry if you see fuel in the window," Dokuchaeva said. "Then we understood that we are not going up - we are flying straight."
Passengers said lights went out in the passenger cabin and some women began shrieking and crying.
"Everybody went to drink something," said Elena Shalnova, 32, a vacationer from Moscow. "I was very scared. I didn't cry [aloft] but after we landed, I cried because I have a daughter and I thought I'd never see her again."
Anderson said his passengers panicked a bit at first but that he, his co-pilot, the first officer and the cabin crew calmed them.
"We talked to them a lot. One of the pilots went back for some face time," he said.
Anderson said his co-pilot was at the controls when the engine blew and that he didn't take back control.
"He did such a great job, there was no reason to switch," he said.
One hundred and six firefighters from 25 units scrambled to await the emergency landing, according to the Fire Department.
That's the equivalent of a two-alarm fire, officials said.
One tire gave way on landing just before 6 p.m., but no one was hurt in the ordeal.
The passengers were loaded onto a new plane for Moscow three hours later.
Anderson didn't climb into the replacement cockpit.
"I'm done for tonight," he said. "We'll let somebody else have the excitement."
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