The AeroMexico plane sits on the tarmac at Mexico City's international airport on Wednesday. (Gregory Bull/Associated Press)

One of five Canadians aboard a Mexican airliner that was hijacked on Wednesday described the ordeal as a nerve-racking experience but said she didn't realize what was happening until she was off the plane.

Andrea Widdicombe, a student from St. Catharines, Ont., was among the 103 passengers travelling to Mexico City from Cancun when a man informed the crew that he had a bomb and demanded to speak with Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

The man held the passengers on the tarmac for an hour before everyone was released safely.

“During the flight I was seated in the middle of the plane, and he was at the back, and I knew nothing about him or what he was doing at all until we were off the plane and taken into the police hangar," Widdicombe told CBC News. “And after a little while, he was brought out of a different police van once they had gotten him and some of the other people off the plane."

Widdicombe said she was able to distract herself by helping police translate to passengers and by trying to help others keep calm.

“But it was definitely very nerve-racking and it was scary.”

“I think the hardest part was not knowing what was happening — why we were being taken to different parts of the airport and being kept in these buses, why the police were around us,” Widdicombe said.

She said the passengers were not allowed to go anywhere and police would not provide them with any information.

“They kept saying everything is OK, but clearly it wasn’t.”

Government officials said Jose Mar Flores, 44, hijacked the aircraft using a fake bomb. The hijacker ordered the pilot to circle Mexico City seven times, and said he wanted to warn Calderon of an impending earthquake.

He was described as a religious fanatic who claimed to have received a divine revelation.