Southwest Airlines Flight 2923 suffered an engine fire after a bird strike on its way to Florida, United States from Cuba. The airline was operating a Boeing 737 Max 8 plane when the flight was forced to turn back after it struck birds that caused an engine to catch fire. No injuries were reported and the plane made a safe landing at the Havana-José Martí Airport in Cuba.


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A video later surfaced on the Twitter, showcasing the moment when the cabin of the plane got filled with smoke, and the airline confirmed the same. A passenger told WSVN that the impact sent fumes through the airplane and caused emergency oxygen masks to deploy.



Southwest Airlines flight 2923 departed Jose Marti International Airport in Havana en route to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Florida on Sunday afternoon. The aircraft "experienced bird strikes to an engine and the aircraft's nose," the airline said in a statement.


"It was like a burn smell, and it was hurting my face. My eyes got real red, my chest started to burn," Steven Rodriguez, a passenger said. The pilots safely returned to Havana, where the 147 passengers and six crew members evacuated the aircraft on slides, the airline said.


The airline bused passengers and crew members to the airport terminal and put the passengers on a different flight to Fort Lauderdale, the airline said.