PENSACOLA, Fla. — Passengers recounted terrifying moments on a Delta flight, traveling from Atlanta to Pensacola Monday afternoon.
The plane was forced to turn around when smoke started to fill the cabin. Apparently, it was due to an engine going out.
Passenger Joseph Marietta says the plane took off just after 1 p.m. ET. He was coming home to Pensacola after a fishing trip in Michigan. He had a stopover in Atlanta.
Marietta said the smoke started about close to 20 minutes after take-off.
“I had already gone to sleep, I was woken up by a loud pop,” Marietta said. “When I woke up the cabin was filling with smoke.”
At that point, he says he felt the plane turning around. Marietta says, that’s when the captain told everyone on board the left engine went out.
“Attendants were telling people to remain calm,” he said. “They were passing out wet wipes to put over your mouth from inhaling smoke. They told everyone to put your head down and get better airflow down low.”
Marietta praised their flight crew for keeping everyone calm during the entire situation.
“After the pilot explained what was going on, you get to a point where it’s like, ‘We’re 30,000 feet in the air and I have no control of what’s going on,'” Marietta said. “And I just got to sit back, let the professionals do their job and hope everything will be alright.”
Emergency crews were waiting for the plane as it landed in Atlanta.
Marietta says Delta quickly got the passengers on another plane about an hour of landing.
Delta has apologized to passengers. The airline gave Marietta a $100 voucher as a sign of good will.
ABC Wear 3
Delta Air Lines celebrates 100 days of no cancellation on mainline flights
This week, Delta people finished a day with no canceled flights for the 100th time in 2015, reaching a remarkable operational milestone with three months to go in the year.
In his weekly message to Delta employees, CEO Richard Anderson said of the feat: “This is an unprecedented accomplishment that should make all Delta people proud. More customers are choosing to fly Delta every day because of our consistent, reliable, top-notch operation.”
“Customers value operational reliability tremendously and it can be the deciding factor when it comes to winning their loyalty,” Anderson said.
In the industry, it’s known as “completion factor” – the percentage of scheduled flights completed in a day. Sounds simple, but anything from weather to unexpected maintenance problems can cancel flights anywhere in the world.
Delta’s numerous high-performing teams – ranging from maintenance to meteorology – have driven the airline to 100 days of 100 percent completion factor so far this year.
There are 97 days left in 2015 and Delta teams will work to continue to push the operational record higher.
Delta Air Lines
Tarantula grounds Delta Air Lines flight at Baltimore…
An escaped tarantula in the cargo hold of a Delta plane delayed a flight from Baltimore to Atlanta Wednesday night, an airline spokesman said.
Flight 1525 was supposed to take off from Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport at 7 p.m. and arrive at Hartsfield-Jackson International just after 9 p.m.
But when Delta baggage handlers on the ground noticed the baboon tarantula out of its carrier container, the captain ordered the plane grounded in Baltimore overnight to be searched for any additional arachnids, Delta spokesman Brian Kruse said.
“They were able to capture it, and they contacted the handler” to verify it was the only spider in the cage, Kruse said.
The captain told the waiting passengers the eight-legged reason for the delay, and passengers were let off the plane and put on another flight, which departed about three hours later, Kruse said.
Kruse noted that the spider was confined to the cargo hold and never entered the cabin. Nevertheless, the plane stayed at BWI, where it was searched and determined to be all-clear.
“Safety and security are our top priority,” he said.
The Baltimore Sun
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