(CNN)  -- Brendon Pelser said he saw pure terror in the faces of his fellow passengers after an engine fell from a wing as it took off from Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday.

Men were sweating profusely, women were crying.

"There was fear on their faces," Pelser said. "Everyone started panicking."

But the pilot of Nationwide Airlines' Boeing 737 Flight CE723 was able to fly long enough to dump fuel and make an emergency landing at Cape Town International Airport.

Including crew, 100 hundred people were on the plane that departed at 3:50 p.m. on an hourlong flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. No one was injured.

The jet had only been in the air about 10 minutes before the engine fell.

"We heard something crash and bang, the plane veering left and right. A person on the right side said the engine was missing -- had broken clean off," said Pelser.  Watch Pelser describe how the flight crew told passengers to "prepare for the worst" »

"They flew us in very slowly. We were all prepared for the worst. We went into the fetal position, head between the legs," he said. "Then we hit the runway."

"I did kind of pray. I didn't want to die. I'm not really ready to die," the 33-year-old said.

An object had been sucked into the engine as the nose wheel lifted from the ground and officials are trying to identify it.

The engine-to-wing supporting structure is designed to release an engine "when extreme forces are applied," to prevent structural damage to the wing, Nationwide said on its Web site.

The airline described the incident as a "catastrophic engine failure."

As the nose wheel lifted from the ground, "the captain heard a loud noise immediately followed by a yaw of the aircraft (sideways slippage) to the right," the airline said in a news release.

The flight instruments showed the No. 2 engine on the right side had failed, it said.

Pelser said he spent the night in Cape Town, then flew back to Johannesburg where he lives, on the same airline.

Nationwide said the engine had undergone a major overhaul in March 2005 at "an approved Federal Aviation Authority facility in the U.S.A." and had flown only 3,806 hours since then.

"These engines typically achieve 10,000 hours between major overhauls," Nationwide Airlines' press release stated. E-mail to a friend
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question: What did the pilot do?, answer: dump fuel and make an emergency landing | question: what did pilot do?, answer: was able to fly long enough to dump fuel and make an emergency landing | question: When did this event take place?, answer: Wednesday. | question: What city was this in?, answer: Cape Town, South Africa, | question: what did plane passanger say?, answer: "There was fear on their faces," | question: What happened to the plane?, answer: fell from a wing | question: What happened to the engine?, answer: fell from a wing | question: What was the response of the passengers?, answer: "Everyone started panicking." | question: Which airline was involved?, answer: Nationwide | question: What Airlines experienced a problem on Wednesday?, answer: Nationwide | question: Was anyone injured on the plane?, answer: No one | question: where did this happen?, answer: Cape Town, South Africa, | question: Which airline was the plane from?, answer: Nationwide | question: Were there any injuries?, answer: No one was injured. | question: Who did the pilot work for?, answer: Nationwide Airlines' | question: Who said "Everyone started panicking?", answer: Pelser | question: Was anyone injured?, answer: No one | question: What happened as the plane took off from the ground?, answer: The jet had only been in the air about 10 minutes before the engine fell. | question: What airline had a pilot dumping fuel?, answer: Nationwide