Air Borealis passengers angered by airline's treatment after plane fills with smoke during takeoff

Picture this: you've boarded a small airplane, carrying just five other passengers. You're on the runway, in the midst of taking off, and the plane is a few feet off the ground.

Then the plane starts filling with smoke.

That's what happened to Hilary Rich, an Innu woman traveling home to Natuashish with her two-year-old son, Jaxon, on an Air Borealis flight in early May as it was taking off from Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

Rich said it was "a surreal moment."

"[The plane] was five feet off the ground. And then the smoke is coming and then we're screeching, screaming. There's a big bang in the back of the freaking plane. The lights are flickering on and off," she said.

Rich said she shielded her son from the smoke with a blanket. In the ensuing commotion, she said, the pilots opened a window to help air out the plane and then made an emergency landing within a couple of minutes.

Passenger Miriam Lidd was shaken by her experience on the plane.

"That really scared me, right?" said Lidd, an Inuk woman from Nain. "I really thought it was going to blow up."

But the aftermath of the incident was even worse, she said. While passengers attempted to calm each other down, Lidd said, no one from Air Borealis checked in on them or asked if they required medical attention.

"They didn't ask if we were OK," said Lidd.

At one point, Rich said, an Air Borealis agent asked to see their video of the incident but asked no additional questions.

"She doesn't ask us how we're doing. She doesn't ask us if my son is OK. Nobody asks if my two-year-old son is OK, if he inhaled that smoke. Not one person," said Rich.

"I don't know if it's because of who we were.… I don't know, and I don't want to say that. But it's just—when are we going to say that? When are we going to know?"

Air Borealis wouldn't answer questions from CBC News but provided a brief statement.