A Delta flight traveling from Madrid to New York City was forced to make an emergency landing on a remote island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean this week, stranding nearly 300 passengers and crew overnight.
Delta Flight 127 departed Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport around 12:30 p.m. local time on Sunday, and was scheduled to land at John F. Kennedy International Airport approximately eight hours later.
However, following an “indication of a mechanical issue with an engine,” the flight crew diverted the Airbus 330 to Lajes Airport (TER) on Terceira Island in the Azores, “as safety comes before all else at Delta,” a company spokesperson told the Daily News on Thursday.
The Azores, an autonomous region of Portugal, is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atlantic Ocean. It’s located roughly 900 miles west of Lisbon and about 1,200 miles southeast of Newfoundland, Canada.
“The flight landed safely, and we sincerely apologize to our customers for their experience and delay in their travels,” the Delta spokesperson said.
According to data from FlightAware, the plane landed at TER after about five hours in the air. All 282 passengers and 13 crew members were then accommodated in local hotels overnight and boarded a new plane sent by Delta the following day.
The flight arrived safely at JKF just before 10:30 p.m. on July 7 — more than 30 hours later than the originally scheduled time.
According to the aviation news site Travel and Tour World, some passengers aboard Flight 127 heard a “loud bang followed by a noticeable jolt” about halfway over the Atlantic Ocean. The unsettling noise was followed by a tense hour in the cabin, with many passengers crying, praying or showing signs of distress.
Delta said it would directly apologize to its customers for the experience and offer unspecified compensation.
The affected aircraft remained parked at Lajes Airport as of Wednesday, Business Insider reported.
