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Pilot asks passengers to pray when plane violently shakes midair

The pilot of an Air Asia flight told passengers to say a prayer when the plane started to violently shake.

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One passenger said the cabin was shuddering like a washing machine.

The Airbus A330-300 aircraft with 359 passengers headed to Malaysia turned backed to Australia Sunday, about 90 minutes into the 6-hour flight.

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"Lots of people crying. Lots of people pulling out the life jackets and stuff, pretty much preparing for that sort of thing. We thought there was a good chance that we were going down," one passenger said.

"We were asleep and heard a loud bang around the 1-hour-and-15-minute mark," another passenger, Damien Stevens, told CNN. "It shook for the whole ride back, close on two hours."

Stevens said the pilot asked passengers to pray at least two times during the flight.

According to Fox News, the pilot, who has 44 years of flying experience, also asked passengers to "keep an eye on" the engine outside their windows because he didn't have clear visibility from the cabin.

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The plane landed safely in Australia and no one was hurt.

Investigators are trying to determine what caused the "technical issue."

"We are aware of the incident and will be working closely with relevant partners to understand the cause of the issue," said a spokesman for Rolls-Royce, the company that manufactured the plane’s engine.

Brianna Chambers contributed to this report.