One of the passengers, Maria Trejos, told 9News that the plane was trying to take off, got into the air for a few seconds and then slammed back to the ground and headed off the runway. At that point, she said, there was some sort of explosion on the right side of the plane and she saw a big ball of flames.
Trejos told the TV station in a cellphone call that the plane went into a ravine and skidded to a halt. Passengers were evacuated through emergency exits and slides.
Maria Trejos is pregnant and was traveling with her husband, Gabriel, and their infant, Elijah.
“Well, the back of the plane was packed. Everybody was trying to get off the plane,” said Gabriel Trejos. “Everybody was yelling, ‘The plane’s gonna blow up! The plane’s gonna blow up!’ The plane was on fire; the engine was, anyway. We saw that at the middle of the plane. We ended up closer because there was nobody trying to get out of that section. So we went out and got out the middle of the plane.
“It seemed like the injured people were getting crushed from the seats because the plane seemed to be buckling from the front to a pretty quick stop.
“And you could kind of see the seats buckling in. I was holding my son, who is 12 months, and I was trying to keep him from getting crushed because the seats were crushing in on each other.”
