Aircraft incidents continue to make headlines this week with a report of possible smoke in the flightdeck of a Delta Air Lines plane that emergency landed in Atlanta, Ga.
Audacy station V-103 in Atlanta previously reported on the emergency landing of Delta Air Lines Flight 876. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the Boeing 717-200 was headed to Columbia Metropolitan Airport in South Carolina Monday when the crew reported that there was possible smoke in aircraft.
CBS News shared photos that appear to show a hazy plane cabin on the flight and of passengers exiting the plane. It said no one was hurt.
Alexis Rossi, a passenger cited by CBS News, said that people in the cabin were saying “smoke,” and “fire,” for around two minutes. She also said flight attendants told them to breathe into their shirts or jackets and duck low before the plane emergency landed.
“The FAA will investigate,” said the administration.
This incident comes after a flurry of concerning reports regarding airplanes, including Delta Air Lines flights. Per the FAA, another Delta flight – a Boeing 767-300 flying as Delta Air Lines Flight 1882 landed safely at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in Puerto Rico Monday after crew reported possible smoke in the flightdeck, similar to the Atlanta landing. That plane departed from Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Last Saturday, Delta Air Lines Flight 43 also had to return to Los Angeles International Airport around 9:30 p.m. local time after the crew reported smoke and fumes in the flight deck. This Airbus A350 was traveling to Sydney Airport in Australia but landed safely at LAX.
Another Delta flight under investigation by the FAA is the plane that went belly up as it crash-landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport in Canada last Monday. While there were no fatalities due to that incident, 21 passengers were sent to the hospital with injuries and Delta offered all 76 passengers $30,000 for what they had to endure. Still, CBS News reported that some of the passengers are suing the airline.
A tragic mid-air collision in Washington D.C. brought increased attention to flight safety at the end of January, and since there have been multiple concerning air incidents. These include a crash in Alaska that killed 10 people, a plane that caught fire on a Texas tarmac, a plane crash in Philadelphia, Pa., that killed six people, a “runway incursion” in Arizona and a collision on a Seattle, Wash., tarmac.