The 51-year-old musician was travelling to Spain to perform at a wedding and other shows when his flight declared an emergency as it passed over Italy.

Hawkes, famous for his 1991 hit, The One And Only, told how a stewardess warned passengers "the plane's going down, we're all going to die" as "everybody started panicking" on the Aegean Airlines Airbus A320.

He was with his wife, Kristina, and 156 other people flying from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Barcelona when the "harrowing" incident happened last week.

He said: "We were halfway from Greece to Barcelona, where I was going to do some shows in Spain, and the plane just started to drop and everybody's ears started to go.

"The stewardess - there's no easy way of saying this - she completely lost her mind, was running down the aisle screaming at everybody telling them to put their masks on, and everyone started to kind of panic around us. It was a crazy scene.

"This went on for quite a while, actually - everybody started panicking and then the captain came over the loudspeakers and said, 'emergency descent, emergency descent, brace, brace'.

"Of course, this is the last thing you want to hear when you're 37,000 feet up and it was a very kind of terrifying ordeal.

"My wife and I just kind of looked at each other and had this kind of moment of, 'oh, is this it? Is this how this ends?'

"Meanwhile, the stewardess is now foetal position on the floor with her mask on."

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'The plane's on its side - I thought that was it'

Hawkes continued: "She's screaming at this guy who was filming. The stewardess was screaming, saying 'the plane's going down, we're all going to die and you're filming'.

"It's just crazy stuff. I looked out the window and the plane's, like, on its side, looking down at the sea and, honestly, I thought that was it."

The singer told how his wife remained calm as they decided to leave a farewell message for their children.

He added: "My wife and I were like, 'this could be it - we have to tell the kids we love them'. The first thing that came into our heads was we've got to leave a message for the kids.

"So we opened up our WhatsApp group with our kiddos and we just said, 'we don't know what's happening. The plane seems to be going down. We love you. We're proud of you. Please look after each other'.

"It was really, like, harrowing - Krissy, my wife, was just absolutely calm as a cucumber and I was like a blubbering mess."

The aircraft safely made an emergency landing in Naples before Hawkes said the same passengers boarded another flight "on the same kind of plane" to Barcelona.

The singer previously said the pilot was a "hero" and that thankfully his children never had to hear the goodbye message.

He said last week: "All the crew were great, even the stewardess who had a moment.

"And thankfully we managed to delete the WhatsApp message when we landed before any of them listened to it."

He also tweeted a picture of himself with the pilot, captioned: "Thank you to all that kept their heads cool, especially #captainfantastic for landing our plane safely today.

"This was not what we expected today, but it's made us appreciate life and those we love just that little bit more."