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Investigators stand near Air Canada flight AC624 that crashed early Sunday morning during a snowstorm, at Stanfield International Airport in Halifax on Sunday, March 29, 2015. Air Canada says 25 people were taken to hospital. The flight had 133 passengers and five crew members.Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press

A frequent traveller who flies more than 50 times a year, Gordon Murray, 54, was one of the 133 passengers aboard an Air Canada plane that landed hard and skidded off the runway at Halifax Stanfield International Airport early on Sunday morning.

How did the evening unfold?

The approach itself wasn't much different than what you'd run into on a stormy evening. I wasn't concerned at all coming in. It was a little bumpy but that was to be expected on the kind of day that we had. As we were about to land there was a bump and a big flash of light. The plane dropped, hit hard, bounced and then went into a skid. All the oxygen masks dropped, the lights all changed and I was sitting a row behind the exit seats. When the plane stopped what I noticed was that the passengers were very quick to get the emergency exits opened and as orderly as you would expect in that kind of environment, people got out of the plane very, very well. There wasn't time to think about being scared or anything else it was really to make sure you get out as quickly and as safely as possible and that you help those around you.

What was the pilot telling you beforehand?

We circled for at least a half an hour. He told everybody that they required a half mile of visibility to come in and at the time we were coming in it was at a quarter mile so they decided to circle. We had enough fuel to circle for upwards of an hour and then if it didn't open up we were going to fly into Moncton and refuel. About 30 minutes or so into it he told us visibility had reduced down to about an eighth of a mile but they were still going to circle a bit longer and then about five minutes later he came back and said he said just got word there was half mile visibility and they were going to make the landing. So we came in. Like I said, it was a typical approach on a stormy day. I've ridden in a lot tougher approaches. I'm not sure what went wrong but obviously something.

Was there an impact while you were still in the air?

I couldn't tell at that point for sure. It all happened so fast. There was a bang and a flash of light, and understanding now what took place, I see now from Twitter that we did take out one of the approach towers. But that would have been not even a full second before we hit the ground. It was almost simultaneous.

What did it feel like to hit the ground?

I don't know if you've ever been in a hard landing but I've been in a few. At first it just felt like, wow, that was a quick drop down. But when we bounced and when we hit a second time and then all the lights changed, then I knew we were really in trouble. There wasn't enough time to be scared. My biggest concern was fire, but once we stopped sliding, and we seemed to slide forever, my concern was smoke in the cabin or fire and there wasn't any. We had seen sparks go flying when the engine came off. It burst into flame a little bit and you could see the sparks where we were sliding on the pavement.

What did it look like as the passengers opened the emergency exits?

There was a young lady sitting right at the exit but a gentleman helped her toss it out and I followed out shortly thereafter and I kind of kicked the window further aside so people could get out and slide down the ramp. We were on the wing exit so we slid down the ramp. There was a heavy smell of jet fuel, so we as a group hustled away from the plane and just huddled. It was pretty cold. I was on a trip from San Diego so I only had short sleeves on. We likened ourselves to a bunch of penguins huddling up"

What went through your mind afterward?

The first thing anyone thinks about is their family. I left my phone and my Ipad sitting in the pocket of the seat in front of me. One of my travelling companions had his phone so the first thing I did was call my wife who was waiting in the terminal to let her know I was okay. She didn't know there was a crash at that time. I started by saying 'I'm okay.' She said 'okay.' I said 'where are you?' She said 'I'm in the terminal.' I said 'well don't you know we crashed,' she said 'no, but there's no power in here.'

There was a lot of adrenalin, nerves. I stood outside in the cold and it was quite a while before I actually started to feel the cold. A lady gave me a shell just to put over my shoulders because she had two coats on and then when they brought tarps to break the wind it was only then that we really started to feel cold.

We were out there, I think they say officially 50 minutes but it felt a lot longer than that to be honest. We were wondering why it was taking so long to get transportation for us. But everybody just huddled together and said lets just wait and be patient and that's what most people were."

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