A British couple have revealed how flight attendants told them they were seconds from death after a mystery passenger tried to start three fires on their plane home from Australia.Gillian and Paul Mason, from Blackburn, Lancashire, feared for their lives after the toilets were twice set ablaze on the Etihad Airways flight from Melbourne to Abu Dhabi.
Crew members battled to put out the fires at 35,000ft as the captain made an emergency diversion to Jakarta, Indonesia.
Passengers pleaded to get off the plane, but after a one-hour security check by Indonesian authorities the journey resumed - only for three more fires to be started.
Flight attendants told Mr Mason, 61, and his wife, 60, that the jet was just 90 seconds away from bursting into flames and plummeting into the Pacific Ocean.
Mrs Mason described the ordeal as 'the worst experience of her life' and said she was stunned they were allowed to carry on flying after the first spate of fires.
'It feels like an absolute miracle that the plane didn't go down and it was a massive relief to be able to get into the airport when we arrived in Abu Dhabi,' she said.
'We were actually told that the plane would have burst into flames if it had been spotted 90 seconds later.
'It was very quiet and all of a sudden I could smell burning and the staff flew down the aisle to see what was going on but it was obvious there was some sort of fire.
'It took a couple of fire extinguishers to put it out and we thought it was all under control.'But not long after it happened again and there was quite a lot of panic on the plane by this point because we had no idea what was going on.
'The captain announced over the tannoy that there had been two serious security breaches and I noticed on the map that our plane had changed course.
'Shortly after that there was another announcement to say we were diverting to Jakarta and that security forces were going to check the plane over.'