Southwest Airlines Pilot Tells Passengers ‘We’re Going Down’ During Midair Nosedive

Passengers on a Southwest Airlines flight from Tampa, Fla., to Raleigh-Durham (N.C.) International Airport heard a chilling announcement Tuesday from the flight’s pilot as the plan took a dramatic nosedive.

"He said, ‘We’re going down.’ And everyone is looking around like, is this a joke? Is he serious? And then you felt the nosedive,” passenger Shelley Wills told local news station WTVD. According to Wills, the drop happened close to 100 miles away from the airport. She described other passengers pulling out cellphones as they attempted to reach out to loved ones before what they believed was an inevitable crash. But lucky for Wills and the other passengers, they all lived to tell their miraculous tale after the Boeing 737 leveled out just a few minutes later.

The plane made an emergency landing at Raleigh-Durham. According to Southwest, the plane experienced a “maintenance alert” that was resolved at 25,000 feet and “the flight was normal, landed uneventfully, and was not met by emergency vehicles” during the rest of the descent. The alert was the result of irregular cabin pressure, says WBTV.

The Federal Aviation Adminstration is now investigating the incident.