Passengers in a quarantined jet seem to have the flu

A large commercial aircraft from Dubai scared on Wednesday after a pilot announced by radio that he would be landing at Kennedy Airport in New York, carrying several passengers and crew members suffering from flu-like symptoms.

The US Centers for Disease Prevention and Prevention immediately quarantined the two-story Emirates aircraft that contained 520 passengers so that they could assess a hundred. Some complained of coughs, headaches, sore throats and fevers.

Authorities said 10 people – three passengers and seven crew members – were hospitalized as part of what Emirates called a "precaution". The others were allowed to continue their travels while the CDC sought to determine the cause of the disease.

"Given the symptoms we see in patients and their history, it seems like it's probably the flu," said Acting Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot. "But again, until we have our final results late tonight, we will not be able to definitively pronounce on the underlying cause of this disease."

On social networks, passengers, including the 1990 Vanilla Ice rapper, published photos and videos of a large – scale emergency response when the plane landed around 9 am JFK. Helicopter videos showed that the plane was stuck on the tarmac for several minutes before the passengers began to emerge in order to board the buses to get to the terminal.

Vanilla Ice, whose real name is Robert Van Winkle, has posted on Facebook a video of an emergency response to a first report that dozens of people could be sick. On Twitter, he described looking out the window of several ambulances, fire trucks and police vehicles converging on the plane.

He also wrote that the patients were sitting on the "ground floor" of the jumbo jet, "so I'm happy to be upstairs."

"Basically, it was chaos when we landed," Ice told reporters Wednesday. He said the pilot had announced that there was a health problem and that people were sick.

Raghida Dergham, another business class passenger on the plane, also said in an interview that sick passengers were in an economic section of the plane.

"I feel good, I feel good," said Dergham. "Nobody was alarmed, it went very well."

But other passengers said they suspected that some passengers were sick before boarding the plane and accused the airline of not doing more to protect the health of others.

"Why did they allow them during the flight? … I sat with them for 13 hours.If this is a virus, we all get sick," said Srinivasa Rao.

Passenger Erin Sykes posted a video showing officers in masks and gloves taking the temperature of the passengers on the tarmac.

In an interview, Sykes said she had seen a few passengers leave the plane first to receive medical attention, but added that "many, many" others had signs of illness.

"Very intense cough, badly sick, get a lot into the bathroom," she said when asked to describe the scene.

She added: "These people should know not to travel in a confined space with other people in good health."

Another aircraft, Zeph Shamba, reported seeing at least one man coughing and vomiting during the 14-hour flight.

"People were worried because we do not know what it is, and we are there and guys with masks on their noses and things like that," Shamba said. "It's like the plane from hell."

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Associated Press Writer, Jon Gambrell in Dubai contributed to this story.