The flight, travelling from Mumbai to Jaipur, turned back shortly after takeoff.

Passengers complained their safety had been “completely ignored” by the airline.

Videos taken inside the aircraft showed the chaos on the flight as air pressure dropped and oxygen masks came down.

According to Flightradar24 aviation tracking site, the plane stopped climbing at 11,000 feet before returning to Mumbai.

Passenger Darshak Hathi said: “Panic situation due to technical fault in Jet Airways flight going from Mumbai to Jaipur. Flight is returning back to Mumbai after 45 minutes. All passengers are safe including me.”

Mr Hathi said there had also been a problem with the plane’s airconditioning when it left Mumbai.

Another passenger Satish Nair tweeted a picture of himself with an oxygen mask on, and complained that “the safety of passengers had been completely ignored” by the airline.

Once he had disembarked the aircraft he said: “[That was] horrifying and the worst incident of my life.”

Passenger Joel D’Souza told CNN: “I saw many people having nose bleeds.

“I took off my oxygen mask for one second and felt so stuffy and hot in the cabin. There was no announcement by the crew and nobody knew what to do. It was more like a flight to hell.”

He said he and other passengers had since boarded another flight.

Lalit Gupta, a senior official of India’s aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), said the crew had forgotten to select a switch to maintain cabin pressure.

The Boeing 737 aircraft, which was carrying 166 passengers, landed safely.

Passengers were immediately attended by doctors and given first aid.

Jet Airways said in a statement that Thursday morning’s flight had turned back “due to loss in cabin pressure” and “regretted” the inconvenience caused to its passengers.

It said: “The B737 aircraft, with 166 guests and 5 crew landed normally in Mumbai.

“All guests were deplaned safely and taken to the terminal. First aid was administered to few guests who complained of ear pain, bleeding nose etc.”

Jet Airways said it had taken the cockpit crew off duty pending an investigation into the incident.

This story was originally published on The Sun and is republished with permission.