Updated: Mon Apr. 20 2009 7:38:48 PM

CTV.ca News Staff

A CanJet Airlines plane in Montego Bay, Jamaica was the scene of a dramatic hijacking late Sunday as a gunman attempted to take control of a Cuban-bound flight.

Not long after the hijacker released the aircraft's passengers, several travellers shared their accounts of what happened during the harrowing ordeal.

Christian Gosselin

Gosselin, a passenger on the flight, told his father that the gunman demanded cash from the plane's occupants.

"The guy wanted to have all their money," Alphonse Gosselin, whose son Christian was on the plane, told The Associated Press. "He (my son) told his girlfriend to take all the money and just take her passport and credit card and put it in her back pocket."

Christian Gosselin was part of a 25-person wedding party headed to Cuba. He and his girlfriend were released by the hostage-taker, and they spoke to his father in New Brunswick, Canada, while waiting for another flight.

"I didn't ask them too many questions; I was more concerned for their safety," the father said. "They were a bit shaken up. It was quite an experience."

Brenda Grenier

Brenda Grenier, a passenger who was freed from the plane, told CTV's Canada AM the gunman came on the plane and demanded to be flown to the U.S. but was told there was no fuel to do so.

"He had the gun to the pilot's head, even, and we all freaked out and everybody started screaming and everyone huddled down into their seat because you don't want to look at him," she told CTV's Canada AM from a hotel room in Montego Bay.

"When we saw the gun and when it went off I held my daughter's hand and I said 'I don't want to go this way, I love you.'"

Eventually, one of the flight attendants convinced the man to release the passengers if they gave him money on their way off the aircraft. They did so and were allowed to disembark.

"We proceeded to just leave our passports on the plane, everything, and we just took our cash and we ran and just ran into the airport and they were very good with us there," Grenier said.

Suzanne Ferguson

Suzanne Ferguson, a bride on her way to her wedding in Cuba, said she thought a gunman who seized the plane during a stopover in Jamaica wanted to crash the jet.

"This is a hijacking sit down ... nobody moves," she told reporters Monday.

After a crew member negotiated the release of the passengers in exchange for money and passports, a female flight attendant ordered everyone off the plane, Ferguson said.

"She was screaming 'Leave everything in the plane! Leave everything in the plane, just get out!'"

The New Brunswick native was one of four brides-to-be on the flight.

She said the incident was terrifying and added that some passengers thought they were experiencing an episode similar to the World Trade Centre attacks in 2001.

However, she praised the crew for convincing the suspect to let the passengers go in return for money and belongings.

Jill Eaton

Passenger Jill Eaton said the suspect appeared to be violent and physically threatening during the early moments of the ordeal.

"I really thought we were dead," she said, referring to the fear that gripped her and other passengers as the hijacker stormed up and down the aisles of the aircraft.

"He got out the fire extinguisher and sprayed one of the stewardesses with it, and I thought he was going to blow us up."

CTV's Rosemary Thompson speaks to passengers in Montego Bay

"What they describe is truly frightening," Thompson said.

"There were four weddings on that flight -- families, many families that were going to Cuba for weddings."

"This man had managed to get onto the plane. Some witnesses said he had what looked like a uniform on, so that's why they think he may have gotten past security. He was armed, he pointed his gun at the pilot, he fired his gun. He apparently took a fire-extingusher and sprayed a flight attendant."

"The witnesses say the flight attendants were incredible, that they were able to calm people down, that they told them to try and be calm. Some of the witnesses say they were praying, others were crying."