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A Delta jet slammed into birds as it took off from Kennedy Airport yesterday — and had to make an emergency landing back at JFK with one of its engines on fire.
As smoke filled the cabin and horrified passengers feared for their lives, the pilots — whose names weren’t revealed — coolly landed the damaged craft at 3:25 p.m. without injury to any of the 179 passengers and crew aboard, a Delta spokesman said.
“That was terrifying. Actually thought we were going down,” tweeted Grant Cardone, a frequent guest on Fox Business who was aboard the Los Angeles-bound flight.
“Birds hitting engine sounded like automobile being [ground up] in the engine!”
The bird strike blew out the starboard engine a few moments after takeoff, with the plane between 800 and 1,000 feet in the air.
“All of a sudden, everyone heard a loud bang. Then the plane started shuddering,” said passenger Matt Kroll.
He said the cabin smelled like “smoke mixed with dead bird.”
Passenger Ali Velshi — CNN’s chief business correspondent — told The Post the bird strike caused a “remarkable grinding noise and shudder.”
He said it felt like the plane was “bucking” for about 40 seconds.
“Then smoke starting filling the cabin,” he recalled.
“The captain calmed us and there was a sense he had this under control,” Velshi said.
“There was also a sense that this plane had to land.”
Velshi, who flies three times a week and takes flying lessons, said everyone applauded after the captain landed the Boeing 757 about eight minutes after takeoff.
He said Delta gave the passengers $100 meal tickets after their ordeal.
“Very big kudos to captin and crew of Delta 1063 JKF-LAX for a quick turnaround & landing after bird strike & cabin filling with smoke,” Velshi tweeted. “We’re safe – thank you, the crew, & God!”
Delta was proud of the crew’s “professionalism displayed in handling a nonroutine event routinely” said an airline spokesman, Anthony Black.
One of the pilots’ discussion with an air controller betrayed no panic, according to audio on the Web site LiveATC.net. He calmly alerted controllers that he had “declared an emergency engine failure on the right engine.”
The Delta pilots may have taken a cue from Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who piloted “Miracle on the Hudson” US Airways Flight 1549 into a splash-landing in the icy Hudson River on Jan. 15, 2009 after geese took out both the jet’s engines.