Plane forced to land in Labrador

Air France says a passenger flight en route to California was forced to land in Labrador following “serious damage” to one of the plane’s four engines.

The airline said the plane landed safely Saturday afternoon after being diverted to Goose Bay airport as a precaution in response to a technical issue.

Monday, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada announced it is investigating the incident.

“The regularly trained pilots and cabin crew handled this serious incident perfectly,” the airline said in a statement. “The passengers are currently being assisted by teams dispatched to the location.”

Passengers on board the aircraft, which departed from Paris for Los Angeles Saturday morning, tweeted photos and video of the plane flying through the clouds with a damaged engine, which appears to have lost its cowling.

Pamela Adams, a travel writer and family therapist from southern California, said she and her husband were on their way home from a trip in France, when six hours into the flight, they got up in the aisle to stretch their limbs.

“We heard this tremendous bang. It was like the plane hit a Jeep at 35,000 feet,” Adams said in a phone interview.

“It was a whiplash moment. We grabbed onto something and then we sat down, and the plane righted itself fairly soon.”