Tulsa Passenger On Damaged Jet Glad To Be Home

A Tulsa woman said she's thankful to be back home safe after the airplane she was on started falling apart in the air. The plane is now getting repaired.

Wednesday, October 15th 2014, 11:19 pm

By: News On 6


A Tulsa woman said she's thankful to be back home safe after the airplane she was on started falling apart in the air. The plane is now getting repaired.

It was an incident that Joan Denney said she'll never forget.

Denney fills in from time to time volunteering at a local non-profit animal clinic, but on Tuesday she never made it to her shift.

When asked if she was afraid it was going to be her last flight, Denney said, “Yes, I was. I was afraid that was it; that I was going to get sucked out that window."

Denney was on her way home to Tulsa on American Airlines flight 2293 from San Francisco to Dallas when a routine take off took a turn.

10/15/2014 Related Story: American Airlines Jet With Damaged Interior Flown To Tulsa

"I hear some popping sounds, and I'm thinking, something's moving in the overhead, then I'm looking around and I hear popping right next to where I'm sitting and I'm sitting right next to the window,” Denney said. “And I see the wall pop out towards me and I see insulation and I'm getting a little panicked by now."

Panic quickly spread as others in the plane noticed that, somehow, the walls in the middle of the plane were buckling inward.

"And people were screaming at that point, ‘No things are not fine, get over here and look at this,' and they're pressing the call button, so one of the flight attendants came up and she started looking at the other side and I'm going ‘over here, over here,;" she said.

All this was happening while anxious passengers recorded with their phones.

Video show groups of the crew evaluated the damage and finally decided to turn the plane around; landing safely back in San Francisco Monday night.

Passengers were given a free hotel stay and new flight reservations, but the ordeal still has Denney shaken.

"It was really scary,” she said.

Representatives with American Airlines told CBS News that the damage inside the Boeing 757 was purely cosmetic and that passengers were not at risk.

As for Denney, she said even though the ordeal rattled her quite a bit, she'll have to face her fear because she'll be flying again in just a few short weeks.

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