Touching down at 9.15am, this Tui flight from Rhodes to Birmingham wasn’t scheduled – instead, the first of several emergency repatriation services scrambled to rescue British tourists.

124 passengers were onboard – some too upset to talk, but those who could described a terrifying situation.

“Pretty horrific to be fair,” said James Jones, who’d been on holiday with his family.

“There was a knock at the door from hotel staff, they said get down to reception and everyone was there from the hotel – thousands of people – then it was get to the beach, when you were on the beach you just had to dump your luggage as you couldn’t drag it across the sand, as you looked behind you it was just coming over the mountains, the fire was moving so fast,” he added.

Emma Darwell-Stone and her daughter Ameila Cookson were also evacuated: “The fire was just behind our hotel so we had to leave all our luggage and passports in the room then we were walking for two hours to get away from the fire and the smoke. 

“Then we clambered on to a truck where they took us to a big meeting point where everyone was just left, basically.

“I felt quite scared because I didn’t know it was going to happen and the smoke kept getting in people’s chests.”