He recalled that the aircraft struck the ground with extreme force before bouncing slightly and tilting to the left.
“It was just incredibly fast. There was a giant firewall down the side. I could actually feel the heat through the glass,” Nelson recounted. “Then we were going sideways. I’m not even sure how many times we tumbled, but we ended upside down,” he told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.
In another interview with CNN, he described the chaos onboard, saying, “It was a surreal feeling. And then everyone was just like, ‘Get out! Get out! Get out!’”
He added, “We could smell jet fuel. Even now I smell like jet fuel.”
Fortunately, all passengers and crew members managed to evacuate before the fire spread further.
Many have expressed amazement that the plane did not erupt into flames upon impact.
“The fact this plane did not explode in flames because of the amount of jet fuel is nothing short of a miracle,” one person commented on YouTube. “Thank god all the souls on this flight survived.”
