Delta passengers describe terrifying moment goose was sucked into plane's engine

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a ... no wait, it actually is a bird.

A Delta flight had to make an emergency landing in Memphis on Monday after a goose reportedly slammed into one of the plane's engines shortly after takeoff.

Apparently, the plane wasn't even ten minutes into its journey to Atlanta when the disturbance occurred.

"We heard this kaboom, bang, thump, thud and you could hear the power just go down and it was like, 'what just happened?'" passenger Mace Coday told WREG.

Naturally, upon hearing a loud noise on an airplane, they began to fear the worst.

"You're thinking, 'the plane is about to catch on fire,'" said another passenger. "I mean, that was the scariest thing to me I think."

"Oh gosh, what wouldn't go through your head?" said passenger Danny Marshall. "It's just like you think the worst. It was a very loud noise. It wasn't just a bump, it was loud."

Panic really set in when the aircraft began to smell like burnt rubber.

According to WREG, everyone on board was silent, many holding hands and hoping for the best.

But after the pilot told everyone what the culprit was -- namely a goose hitting smack into the plane's engine -- the worry began to fade.

"When we got off, I shook the pilot's hand, his hand was like soaked wet with sweat so you could tell he was definitely nervous," said Marshall.

Although everyone onboard was obviously thrilled to have made it through the ordeal completely unscathed, their joy was ultimately short-lived.

Delta reported that 144 people were on the plane, and some of them were not able catch another flight out of Memphis for eight hours.

"All I'm saying is when that type of situation happens and an entire flight gets grounded ten minutes into the flight, you need a backup plan," Coday told WREG.

Oh, how quickly we forget our gratitude.

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