WINNIPEG — A team of taekwondo athletes from Winnipeg arrived home Thursday, after narrowly missing an airport explosion that killed dozens of people in Brussels earlier this week.
On Tuesday, the group of 10 young athletes and four instructors from Winnipeg’s Tae Ryong Park Academy, were coming home, excited to show off their medals, after a two week long international competition in Belgium.
They had just pulled into the Brussels airport when they heard a bomb explode and saw smoke billowing from the building.
READ MORE: Brussels attacks: Winnipeg athletes late leaving hotel, narrowly miss airport bombing
There were two airport explosions, and both left behind a chaotic scene of splattered blood in the departure lounge as windows were blown out, ceilings collapsed and travellers streamed out of the smoky building.
Jae Park, owner and master of the TRP Academy, said many of his teammates, including his wife, son and nephew, witnessed the chaotic scene.
WATCH: Winnipeg Taekwondo group has close call near Brussels airport, hears bomb explode
“They saw some people running out of the terminal, a couple of people with their arms all bloody,” Park told Global News over the the phone from Brussels. “People were running out with their suitcases in a panic.”
Park said the team was “thankfully” running 10 minutes late. If they hadn’t, they would have been standing in the departures area, right where the explosion happened.
After the airport shut down Tuesday, the team drove to Paris. They are expected to arrive at 4:45 p.m. CT Thursday, on an Air Canada flight.