Southwest passenger's video shows plane's engine spitting out flames mid-flight

• A Southwest Airlines plane left a trail of flames in the sky after taking off from Houston, Texas.
• It returned to Houston's Hobby Airport 27 minutes after departure because of a "mechanical issue."
• One passenger said he could see "fireballs shooting out" of the engine from his window.

A Southwest Airlines plane was seen on fire in the sky shortly after takeoff from Houston, Texas, video shows.

Video of the incident was initially posted by Ricardo Garcia on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. The video appears to show Garcia's view of the flaming and smoking engine from inside the plane, where he sits in what is seemingly a window seat near the plane's wing, where the engine is located.

In another video captured by Andrew Sandino and shared with NBC News, the Southwest Airlines plane, initially bound for Cancun, had flames shooting out of one of its engines, leaving a trail of smoke and flames in the sky as it returned to land at Houston's Hobby Airport on Tuesday evening.

"Southwest Flight #307 from Houston Hobby (HOU) to Cancun (CUN) returned to the airport on Tuesday night after experiencing a mechanical issue shortly after takeoff," a spokesperson for Southwest Airlines told Insider in a statement.

"The aircraft landed safely, was taken out of service for review, and a different aircraft continued the flight to Cancun Tuesday evening," it said. "We applaud the crew for their professionalism, and we appreciate our customers' patience."

The plane was only in the air for approximately 27 minutes from 6:38 p.m. CDT till 7:05 p.m. CDT, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.

A passenger on the flight from San Antonio, Coale Kalisek, was going on vacation with his girlfriend, he told local station KHOU.

Kalisek was woken up from a nap after feeling the plane's bizarre movements.

"All I know is that it started, like, swinging, like, left and right. And I thought … I've been on a lot of flights," Kalisek told KHOU. "Like, I fly probably once or twice a month, and I knew that wasn't normal, and so I opened up my window, and I'm sitting right next to the engine, and the whole engine, like, you see like fireballs shooting out of it."

He added: "I was thinking damn it. It's gonna finally go down because I fly so much."

Kalisek and his girlfriend were shaken by the incident and decided not to take the other flight to Cancun, KHOU reported.