IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Passenger on skidding airplane tells harrowing tale of 'sliding for thousands of feet'

Jaime Primak Sullivan, a passenger on the Delta flight that skidded off a runway at New York's LaGuardia Airport on Thursday, shared her harrowing experience with TODAY's Savannah Guthrie on Friday.
/ Source: TODAY

Jaime Primak Sullivan, a passenger on the Delta flight that skidded off a runway at New York's LaGuardia Airport on Thursday, shared her harrowing experience with TODAY's Savannah Guthrie on Friday.

“It was a life-changing experience,” she explained. Primak Sullivan said she knew something was wrong as soon as the plane made contact with the ground and she couldn’t feel the brakes take hold.

"You're literally just sliding for thousands of feet,” she said.

A number of the 127 passengers were hurt in the accident, but none of the injuries were life-threatening, the fire department said.

Primak Sullivan, who stars in the Bravo reality show, “Jersey Belle,” also described:

  • What went through her mind when she realized the danger she was in: "There’s the moment where you don’t know what you’re going to hit. What’s going to slow us down? Will it be another plane? Will it be the airport? You have no idea. And then I saw the rocks, and then I saw the water. And it’s at that moment that your mind goes, what happens if you go into the water? Do planes sink? Do they float? Will I ever see my kids again?"
  • How she flies every month for work and normally feels very safe on planes. "But it’s in that moment, that you’re so unprepared for what happens. The pilots did everything they could but it's no different than a car that’s lost control on ice, except that we’re going hundreds of miles per hour."
  • The chaos inside the plane as it hit the icy ground: “Probably halfway through the runway, I felt the nose of the plane jerk left. It started to really shake and bump and oxygen masks were falling and things were falling. It’s at that moment that you know."
  • How she didn’t become emotional until the pilot walked out the cockpit. “I looked right at him, and he looked right at me and I sort of came unglued at that moment,” she said. “His only concern was for his passengers. He walked right up to me and put his arm around me and said I’m going to get you off this plane. And he did. "

Follow TODAY.com writer Eun Kyung Kim on Twitter.

This article was originally published Mar. 6, 2015 at 8:56 a.m. ET.