American Airlines flight from LaGuardia makes emergency landing at JFK after bird damages engine: I thought I was gonna die

American Airlines passengers feared for their lives Thursday, when a bird flew into the engine of their outbound LaGuardia flight — forcing the plane to quickly make an emergency touchdown at the city’s other airport.Flight 1722 took off from LGA just after 7:20 p.m.

and was scheduled to land at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina less than two hours later — but the plane barely made it past the coast of Long Island before it was diverted and forced to land at JFK International Airport, according to flight radar.A bird struck an engine of the Airbus A321 causing severe damage that rendered the right propellant entirely useless, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said.The plane — then powered solely by its secondary engine — landed safely without incident at JFK, the Port Authority said.Surreal video, filmed by a passenger, shows the moment the bird is sucked into the plane’s engine.The clip posted on X shows the split-second the engine sucks up the poor feathered flyer, which appears to ignite and explode into flames on impact as the plane tilts to the side.Passengers from the grounded flight told The Post they saw flames and thought the worst as they waited for their bags at a luggage carousel in JFK’s Terminal 8.“I thought I was gonna die,” Amy Stamper, of Tennessee, said.“I was scared.

I thought I was gonna die.There were a couple of small explosions.

And there was a fire,” Stamper said in disbelief.Another passenger, who asked to remain anonymous, expressed similarly dire feelings.“I was right by the wing and I saw it.I saw two flames in the sky… I thought I was gonna die.

I prayed.I thought I was gonna die for about 30 seconds,” the man said.Eric Halili, 43, was also left shaken by the flight gone wrong.

“I think that was a very traumatic experience and what made it worse was that we had to wait over an hour to get our bags,” Halili griped.“You just wanted the day to end and it just didn’...