Terrified passengers feared they would be 'smashed to pieces' as their jet's engine exploded and the plane plummeted 'nose first' nearly 30,000 feet within minutes on a flight over France. 

Passengers on flight AF 7721 from Paris to Ajaccio experienced a nightmarish situation when their plane was forced to divert. 

Just 30 minutes after takeoff at around 6pm, passengers say they heard a loud bang in the cabin.

Christelle, a woman travelling with her daughter, told RTL she witnessed fire on the wing of the aircraft, saying: 'It was in flames.'

She added that she felt the plane 'plummet', and watched as chaos erupted amongst passengers.

'The buttons, everything was lighting up, everything was flashing. There was a man who grabbed his children because they thought we were going to crash,' Christelle said. 

Another woman, Joelle, added that she 'thought we were going to be smashed to pieces'. 

She said: 'I grabbed the phone to call my daughter, I said I'm going to die, I'm going to die,' Le Parisien reported.

According to Le Parisien, flight tracking data from FlightRadar shows that the aircraft descended from an altitude of approximately 34,000 feet to around 5,000 feet in about ten minutes

 Passengers said the captain had explained that the left engine of the aircraft 'stopped working mid-flight.'

 However, Air France referred to the incident as an 'engine failure'.

An industry expert explained that it is a case of 'engine surge' where the crew is forced to 'shut down the engine' after air pockets form within it and create vibrations, according to Le Parisien.

The crew ultimately decided to divert the plane to Lyon during the incident this weekend.

The airline stated that the decision was taken 'in accordance with the manufacturer's procedures, the company's instructions, and the precautionary principle.'

Passengers were forced to take a replacement flight at 10:40pm, which brought them to Bastia, and from there a bus to Ajaccio, where they arrived at 3am.

The landing in Lyon 'went normally on a single engine,' according to the expert.

 He said that although flying on one engine is not a usual situation, 'these things happen in the world of air transport'.

 Despite passenger accounts, the expert went on to add that 'the wing was not on fire, the engine was not on fire, there was no fire alarm'.

However, he admitted he could not rule out that there could have been some momentary flames on the nozzle which were 'contained within the engine'.

The Airbus A320 operating the flight contains two CFM56 engines, which the expert claimed are one of the 'most reliable' engines globally. 

Despite passengers making it to their destination safely, Joelle has announced she intends to file a complaint against Air France.

She described the effects of the incident, saying: 'My 8-year-old granddaughter spent the night terrified of me, trembling all over, crying, and waking up from nightmares.'