Cabin walls crack open on American Airlines flight

An American Airlines flight has been forced to make an emergency landing after its cabin walls began to break loose.

Passengers said they knew something was wrong when they felt the fuselage shake and heard popping noises coming from outside the Boeing 757 shortly after take-off yesterday afternoon, KTVU reports.

Interior panels on both sides of the aircraft then began to pull apart from the walls, exposing insulation.

Flight attendants aboard the San Francisco-to-Dallas inspected the damaged panels, thought to be caused by a blown air duct, and the captain initially announced the flight would continue because the pressure inside the cabin was stable.

But the captain reportedly changed his mind after inspecting the panels for himself and turned the plane around to make an emergency landing.

None of the 184 passengers or six crew were hurt.

Aviation safety experts said that while seeing any piece of the plane break may be troubling for passengers, the cabin's plastic wall panels are not part of the plane's structure and the incident posed no flight safety risk.