‘I believed that was it’: Chesney Hawkes recollects ‘harrowing’ flight ordeal as aircraft plunged 20,000ft

Singer Chesney Hawkes has advised Sky News of his “terrifying ordeal” and the way he thought he and his spouse had been going to die when the aircraft they had been on out of the blue plunged 20,000ft.

The 51-year-old musician was travelling to Spain to carry out at a marriage and different exhibits when his flight declared an emergency because it handed over Italy.

Hawkes, well-known for his 1991 hit, The One And Only, advised how a stewardess warned passengers “the plane’s going down, we’re all going to die” as “everybody started panicking” on the Aegean Airlines Airbus A320.

He was along with his spouse, Kristina, and 156 different individuals flying from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Barcelona when the “harrowing” incident occurred final week.

He mentioned: “We were halfway from Greece to Barcelona, where I was going to do some shows in Spain, and the aircraft simply began to drop and all people’s ears began to go.

“The stewardess – there’s no easy way of saying this – she completely lost her mind, was running down the aisle screaming at everybody telling them to put their masks on, and everyone started to kind of panic around us. It was a crazy scene.

“This went on for fairly some time, truly – all people began panicking after which the captain came visiting the loudspeakers and mentioned, ’emergency descent, emergency descent, brace, brace’.

“Of course, this is the last thing you want to hear when you’re 37,000 feet up and it was a very kind of terrifying ordeal.

“My spouse and I simply type of checked out one another and had this sort of second of, ‘oh, is that this it? Is this how this ends?’

“Meanwhile, the stewardess is now foetal position on the floor with her mask on.”

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‘The aircraft’s on its aspect – I believed that was it’

Hawkes continued: “She’s screaming at this guy who was filming. The stewardess was screaming, saying ‘the plane’s going down, we’re all going to die and you’re filming’.

“It’s simply loopy stuff. I seemed out the window and the aircraft’s, like, on its aspect, trying down on the sea and, actually, I believed that was it.”

The singer told how his wife remained calm as they decided to leave a farewell message for their children.

He added: “My spouse and I had been like, ‘this may very well be it – we’ve to inform the children we love them’. The very first thing that got here into our heads was we have to go away a message for the children.

“So we opened up our WhatsApp group with our kiddos and we just said, ‘we don’t know what’s happening. The plane seems to be going down. We love you. We’re proud of you. Please look after each other’.

“It was actually, like, harrowing – Krissy, my spouse, was simply completely calm as a cucumber and I used to be like a blubbering mess.”

The aircraft safely made an emergency landing in Naples before Hawkes said the same passengers boarded another flight “on the identical type of aircraft” to Barcelona.

The singer previously said the pilot was a “hero” and that thankfully his children never had to hear the goodbye message.

He said last week: “All the crew had been nice, even the stewardess who had a second.

“And thankfully we managed to delete the WhatsApp message when we landed before any of them listened to it.”

He additionally tweeted an image of himself with the pilot, captioned: “Thank you to all that kept their heads cool, especially #captainfantastic for landing our plane safely today.

“This was not what we anticipated as we speak, but it surely’s made us respect life and people we love simply that little bit extra.”