Passengers were forced to evacuate a Southwest Airlines plane on Friday after part of the cabin was filled with smoke due to a fire on board.
According to reports from the New York Post, passengers were forced to evacuate the plane after a phone battery caught on fire while the aircraft was waiting to depart Denver International Airport in Colorado.
Passengers on board claimed that smoke began to fill the back of the aircraft before they were forced to leave the plane.
Jennifer Rodgers, who was on the plane at the time, told CBS News: "Everybody saw the smoke, because it kind of filled the back of the cabin, and then somebody screamed 'Fire.'"
Seth Anderson, who was also on the aircraft, added: "It must have been burning pretty rapidly, because there was a pause, and then there was again 'Fire! Fire!'
"And then all of a sudden everybody just started getting up, and that's when all the panicking started on the plane."
The incident occurred on Southwest Airlines flight 3316 while 108 passengers were on board, waiting to fly to Houston, Texas.
CNN reports that eyewitnesses claimed the cause of the fire was a passenger's smartphone, which began to fill the cabin with acrid smoke and caused a seat to catch on fire.
Passengers in the front of the plane were ordered to evacuate the aircraft via the jet bridge, while those in the rear slid down an emergency slide, as captured on video footage.
Crew members quickly leaped into action and used a fire extinguisher board to put out the flame on the seat, Fox News reports.
Jacquetta Anderson, who was also aboard the aircraft, told the outlet of the chaotic scenes that unfolded: "There’s nowhere to go, because they were exiting through the back of the plane. And so I kind of got pushed around a little bit.
"People were yelling leave your stuff. But I actually had two dogs with me, and I wasn’t going to leave them."
The plane had taxied late due to some technical troubles and Anderson added: "I can't think enough about that.
"That little delay that we had at the beginning. Really helped us keep on the ground while that was happening, because we would have been up in the air by that time and then that thing would have been on fire. While we were in the air. That would have been a catastrophe."
Two people were injured in the melee, with one passenger reportedly suffering injuries during the evacuation, while the person whose phone caught alight had to be treated for burns to their hand, the airline said in a statement.
CNN reports that after the incident, the flight was able to touch down three hours later at its destination, William P. Hobby Airport in Houston.
The Federal Aviation Administration has launched an investigation into the cause of the incident.
