Passengers post harrowing videos of fiery engine surge as plane returns safely to LAX

Above, a video posted by a passenger on a Philippine Airlines flight that headed out of LAX and then headed right back in again.

KTLA reports:

Passengers and people on the ground videotaped repeated blasts of flame coming from the right engine of the Boeing 777 minutes after takeoff.

"I could see, like, flashes of light. I thought it was ... just from the sunlight and then I just started hearing, like 'boom, boom, boom,'" passenger Walter Baumann told KABC-TV. "And then I look out of the window and these balls of fire are just shooting out of the engine."

Andrew Ames was a passenger in a car speeding down a freeway near the airport when he got a video of the plane.

"The back was spewing fire bolts," he said. "It looked like when you see a backfire from a motorcycle. Then I thought, 'I don't think a plane is supposed to do that.'"