Sounds like a compressor stall. Not common but it does happen.
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Yup - impressive ball of fire at night too. Worked a few TF33 (P&W JT3) compressor stall problems. Usually a bleed valve going wonky.
When pieces start coming out the back that’s a whole ‘nother story. That engine is well and truly trashed.
And telling the women screaming doesn’t help won’t work....
Used to test-run turbo-fans, (night shift) - when we would do surge-margin checks we would turn the lights out in the test cell - seeing that fire-ball never got old!