Passengers on an Air Canada flight from Edmonton to Toronto had a scary experience Sunday morning when the crew declared an emergency on board the aircraft as it started its descent.

Scheduled to land at Pearson International Airport at 6:35 a.m., AC 1147 had begun landing procedures when pilots detected a problem with the aircraft and issued a mayday alert to ground control.

“We were very scared. It seemed like it was going to be a very scary landing,” Monique Auffrey, one of the passengers on the plane, told CP24.

Auffrey said she had just woken up from a nap and was expecting the plane to land when her husband told her there was something wrong.

“Then I observed the flight crew gathering and talking,” Auffrey said. “I looked at the screen in front of me and could see the plane was being diverted to what looked like maybe New York or Buffalo and then suddenly the screen went blank and the captain came on and said that there was a problem, that we would be making an emergency landing and we would be taught how to brace ourselves.”

“At that point we looked out the window and it looked like we were over Lake Ontario. We didn’t know what was going to happen. The flight crew remained calm throughout the entire process.”

At the time, the Airbus 320 was carrying 87 passengers, two pilots and four flight attendants.

In a recording of the radio transmissions from the plane, the pilot can be heard telling ground control that the plane had lost most of its flaps and auto pilot.

According to Air Canada, the crew declared an emergency on the plane after a flight control indication came on.

“Our crew are well trained to handle these events and followed procedures by declaring an emergency,” an Air Canada spokesperson told CP24 in an email. “The flight landed safely. We are currently taking care of our customers and maintenance is inspecting the aircraft.”

The flight touched down at Pearson International Airport at 7:10 a.m., according to the airport.

“As soon as we made a safe landing, everybody started to clap,” Auffrey said.

Speaking with cp24.com, Auffrey called the experience “surreal” and said she was just looking forward to seeing her daughter.

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