Six people are injured after a jet bridge "equipment failure" at Baltimore Washington International Airport Saturday night.
Southwest flight 822 had arrived from Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, just before 8 p.m. when paramedics were called to help with a medical situation involving a passenger on the flight, a Southwest Airlines spokesperson said in a statement.
While medics were helping the passenger outside the plane, the jet bridge experienced a "failure," the spokesperson said.
"Partial equipment failure involving jet bridge at #BWI Gate E-10. BWI Fire & Rescue Dept responded, along w/ mutual aid," BWI tweeted.
Medics took six people to local hospitals with non-life threatening injuries, BWI said.
"It was traumatic and everybody rushed to the front of the plane and the flight attendants were like, 'Please sit down' and nobody knew what was going on," passenger Michele Yerman told News4 news partner WBAL.
Yerman said the pilot had asked all of the passengers to stay seated when the plane landed so that a woman who needed medical help could get off the plane. The woman then walked off the plane with some paramedics with her.
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"And about two seconds after she walked out there was this loud crash," Yerman said.
Southwest said the remaining passengers on the plane eventually got off via air stairs.
Yerman and her daughters said that after they finally were able to get off the plane, they could see people picking up screws.
"I saw a man holding a bunch of screws in his hand and like trying to figure out why that collapsed," Lila Yerman said.
"It was just very scary that it collapsed with people on it and they took a big spill onto the concrete and we're just hoping everybody's ok," Michele Yerman said.
BWI says the loading bridge will not be used pending an investigation and the plane was moved from the gate.
No further information was immediately available.
Stay with News4 and NBCWashington.com for updates.
