A Delta Air Lines jet made an emergency landing in Atlanta Monday morning, evacuating passengers via slides on the runway, after haze or smoke filled the cabin, airline and federal officials said.
Flight 876 had been en route to Columbia, South Carolina, when “the crew reported possible smoke in the flightdeck” and had the Boeing 717-200 turn around, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
“The flight crew followed procedures to return to Atlanta when a haze inside the aircraft was observed after departure,” Delta said in a statement obtained by WTOC-TV. “Nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and people and we apologize to our customers for the experience.”
Video obtained by ABC News showed thick gray haze permeating the cabin. Two pilots, three flight attendants and 94 passengers were aboard and were helped off the plane by Atlanta Fire Rescue personnel. The airport said there was “a moderate impact to operations at this time,” ABC News reported.
Delta apologized to its passengers, and the FAA said it would investigate.
This was the second smoke-related incident for Delta in as many days. On Saturday night Delta Flight DL43 departed Los Angeles for Sydney but turned around shortly afterward because of smoke detected in the galley, the airline said Sunday, according to NBC News.
The incident comes barely a week after Delta Flight 4819 skidded on a Toronto runway, caught fire and flipped over, leaving terrified passengers hanging upside-down “like bats,” as one of them recalled at the time. No one died on the flight, which was carrying 76 passengers and four crew aboard CRJ-900 aircraft operated by Endeavor Air, but 17 were injured.
Delta offered those passengers $30,000 each, but at least two of them have sued the airline and its subsidiary.
