First responders were called to the Nanaimo Airport after the cabin of a WestJet plane filled with smoke minutes before it was set to land.
Passengers say it happened as the plane, heading to Nanaimo from Vancouver, was descending.
"The cabin just started filling up with smoke and then people started to panic a little bit, other people stayed calm," said passenger Marci Pimlott.
"You could smell the smoke and after a couple minutes you could see the haze and that was about it," another passenger told CTV News. "They stopped short of the tarmac here and had us all bail out, basically. They said it was an emergency situation, and had us clear the plane and get off the runway, off into the field there."
Though passengers described intense moments aboard the aircraft, there were no reported injuries and the plane landed without issue.
"[WestJet staff] did a really good job, stayed calm. Better than me," said Pimlott.
There's no word on what caused the smoke.
The incident delayed a few flights heading into and out of the airport, but operations resumed as normal after the plane was removed from the runway.
