Passengers reveal air terror

Passengers on a Tiger flight from Adelaide to Melbourne have told of their terror after they heard what sounded like an explosion shortly after takeoff.

The flight suffered engine problems shortly after taking off and quickly returned to Adelaide last night.

Passenger Jessica Feehan said one of her friends could see fire from outside his window next to the wing.

Terrified passengers were left in the dark for about 10 minutes before being told that the flight had engine problems, she said.

“I saw flames coming out of the engine, heard the noise, saw the flames and I thought uh-oh,” said another passenger, Roger Bennett.

Melissa Pritchard said that plenty of people on the plane were tense during the mid-air drama.

“There was a loud band and then … the plane started heading down this way a little bit and went around in big circles,” she said.

Tiger says the problem was an engine suppression surge – similar to a car backfiring.

The airline apologised to passengers who were put safely on a replacement flight this morning.

The broken airplane has been taken out of service, with engineers now tasked with finding out exactly what went wrong.