LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A passenger aboard the Frontier Airlines flight that caught fire while landing at Harry Reid International Airport shared his experience with 8 News Now Sunday.
It was a scary scene on Saturday when Frontier Flight 1326 caught fire and made a hard landing in Las Vegas.
“No communication with the pilot whatsoever,” the moments leading up to the incident heard on Air Traffic Control audio on LiveATC.net “His radios are out.”
Las Vegas resident Dan Pausch, a passenger on that plane coming from San Diego told 8 News Now the experience was uncomfortable.
“The landing was pretty hard,” Pausch recalled. “The wheels got ground down and it felt like going down the railroad tracks.”
The flight landed in Las Vegas around 3:40 p.m. after “The pilots detected smoke and declared an emergency,” a spokesperson for Frontier Airlines confirmed to CBS News.
Video shared on social media showed flames and smoke billowing from the aircraft as the pilot brought it to a stop.
“The pilot stopped in the middle of the runway,” Pausch said. “That was a first, the plane was running a little to the left.”
Pausch also caught the moment Clark County Fire crews responded to get things under control.
“The water showed up,” he recalled. “And then the foam showed up.”
An airport spokesperson told CBS News that all passengers and crew were evacuated safely with no injuries.
Pausch walked 8 News Now through the moments they were taken out of the plane and onto the runway.
“They brought out a set of orange stairs,” he recalled. “And everybody climbed down the stairs.”
While everything was happening, he told 8 News Now people weren’t overly panicked, but they were stuck waiting on the runway for at least 30 minutes before the evacuation.
“You didn’t know what was going on,” Pausch recalled. “So I guess you can’t be afraid of what you don’t know.”
It was a situation that ended peacefully but could have been worse.
“We got off and saw how many rescue vehicles were there,” Pausch concluded. “That it was more serious than just a flat tire.”
The cause of the incident on that Frontier flight is still under investigation.