O'HARE AIRPORT — As terrified passengers rushed to get off a plane that caught fire at O'Hare Airport on Friday, others on the aircraft grabbed bags from overhead compartments — potentially endangering others evacuating, a witness said.
The scene unfolded on American Airlines Flight 383 after an engine caught fire moments before the plane was to take off for Miami on Friday afternoon.
RELATED: American Airlines Plane Catches Fire: 'This Could Have Been Absolutely Devastating'
The crew halted the flight, and started telling people to exit. But as they started heading to the front of the plane, away from an engine that caught fire, some passengers opened overhead bins and grabbed luggage, a passenger said.
Listen to Alex Nitkin describe the controlled chaos as the plane burned.
Passenger Gary Schiavone, of Indiana, said that happened even after a safety video had played just minutes before the flight was halted.
"Thirty seconds into the safety video they say, 'In the event of an emergency, don't grab your luggage,'" he told reporters later. "Well, right when it happened, seven or eight people tried to grab their luggage. You're not supposed to do that."
In a chaotic video from inside the plane, taken by passenger Hector Cardenas and originally posted to Facebook, several people can be seen opening overhead bins— many are completely empty of any bags.
No one could be seen in the video grabbing bags from the bins, but numerous people could be heard screaming, "Let's go!" and "Go, go, go!"
Even with the delays, Schiavone said it took him about a minute to get off the plane, and he praised the airline crew for assisting in the evacuation.
All 161 passengers and nine crew members got off the plane safely. Twenty people were taken to local hospitals and treated for injuries, mainly minor and coming from passengers going down an inflatable slide, officials said.
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