![\"Pauwels](\"https:\/\/www.trifind.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/pauwels-300x200.jpg\")
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\u201cThe stewardesses had just served breakfast, but quickly had to clear it,\u201d Pauwels told Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cNot much later the pilot announced that the smoke sensors had gone off in the luggage compartment and that we would make an emergency landing in Nice.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A rapid Descent to Nice<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n
According to flight data, the Boeing 777 was cruising at 34,000ft before they detected the ‘fire’. Apparently, the fire alarm was later declared as a false one. This was the moment all the panicking begun to take place among the passengers including the two Dimension Data riders who soon discovered they had to make a rapid descent towards Nice.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was frightening. I was at the emergency exit. Which meant that the stewardess was sat right in front of me\u00a0and heard her praying. I just thought I would not make it to 34 years old,\u201d Pauwels added.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Finally, in less than 20 minutes, the riders, and the rest of the passengers, were back on the ground. Vermote later described the horrifying experience as \u00a0\u201cnot the most pleasant quarter of an hour in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Serge Pauwels and Julien Vermote were returning back to Amsterdam from Cape Town from a team training camp when they faced a mid-flight terrifying experience. They both described the moments of their routine flight as horrifying after fire alarms were triggered. Eventually, their KLM flight had to undergo…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[72],"tags":[453,2379,2376,2378,2377],"class_list":["post-3536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-stories","tag-cycling-news","tag-fire-on-the-plane","tag-serge-pauwels-and-julien-vermote-flight-terror","tag-serge-pauwels-and-julien-vermote-plane-fire","tag-serge-pauwels-fire-on-the-plane"],"yoast_head":"\n