Passengers who were forced to evacuate a plane after it filled up with smoke mid-flight have said they are still experiencing breathing difficulties two months on. Travellers on board the British Airways (BA) service from London Heathrow to Valencia likened the incident on August 5 to a "horror film". After landing in the Spanish city, passengers evacuated the aircraft via emergency chutes. Gayle Fitzpatrick, 40, from Glasgow, was on holiday with her husband Stephen when the cabin started to fill with "horrible white acrid smoke". She described the moment as "really scary" and said passengers began to panic when the crew emerged wearing "chemical suits and gas masks" as the plane went into a quick descent. She told STV News: "I thought 'is the plane about to crash, is it about to explode?' "People were starting to get really, really panicky by that stage. "There was a lot of young children on the plane wondering what was happening - you could see their parents were struggling to keep them calm. "It was terrifying. I thought 'am I going to die?'" Mrs Fitzpatrick said the smoke felt like it was burning her throat, nose and chest. Two months on, she has now been referred by her doctor to a respiratory specialist. She said: "My chest has definitely been affected. "I've had breathlessness. I'm usually quite a kind of fit person - I go to the gym and enjoy walking, but going walking uphill even to my work has been a real struggle. "I feel like I'm really struggling for breath and I always feel like I've got low-level kind of cold-like symptoms coming on, so my GP has actually referred me to a respiratory specialist because she's concerned about what I was exposed to as well - which BA obviously haven't told us." Fellow passenger Frank Sweeney was travelling with a colleague. He claims both men have experienced changes in their breathing, including "shortness of breath" when walking upstairs or hills. Mr Sweeney stated: "I've had sores on the inside of my nose. It's been quite concerning." He said his colleague has been "much worse" and has been referred to a respiratory specialist. Mr Sweeney added: "We have had no answers from BA whatsoever. "I want to know what we've breathed in. I want to know what the short-term and long-term effects of this are, and what they are going to do about it. "I want to know should that plane have been flying." At the time, BA confirmed the flight was involved in an incident but did not reveal what went wrong. The company said engineers spent 2000 man-hours checking the aircraft before it was cleared to return to the air. The company stated that it would never operate an aircraft if "we believed it posed any health or safety risk to our customers or crew", but could not comment further for legal reasons as it is currently awaiting the outcome of a Spanish air accident investigation. A British Airways spokesperson said: "We know that this was an upsetting time, so we have stayed close to our customers, offering ongoing help and support. "As well as our partners on the ground, we sent an additional 21 British Airways staff to Valencia to look after our customers in the first instance, and within 24 hours everyone on the flight was given a personal BA contact within our dedicated support team. "We have offered to fund counselling and Flying with Confidence courses, and are committed to continue this close contact for as long as our customers would like it. "We are legally unable to comment on causes until the Spanish air accident investigation is concluded."