Passengers aboard a Delta flight from New York to Los Angeles were shocked Saturday when an emergency inflatable slide deployed inside the plane during an unscheduled landing in Salt Lake City.
The flight from John F. Kennedy Airport to Los Angeles International Airport with 168 passengers was diverted to Salt Lake City International Airport due to a maintenance issue. The Boeing 767-300 was on the ground when its emergency slide accidentally deployed, Delta said in a statement.
The airline said the unscheduled landing was not due to the slide.
“This is the first time I’ve seen an emergency slide accidentally deployed INSIDE the plane,” a passenger tweeted with a photo of the deployed slide blocking the plane’s aisle.
One crew member was taken to a hospital for evaluation and later released, Delta said in the statement. Details about what triggered the implementation were not immediately available.
Passengers transferred to a different aircraft for the final leg of their trip to Los Angeles. That flight landed Saturday night at LAX.
The slides are designed to quickly deploy and inflate in an emergency, allowing passengers to exit the plane during an evacuation. They are packaged and stored inside the doors or fuselage of commercial aircraft and automatically deploy when an aircraft door is opened in the armed position.
In March, a Delta passenger was detained at LAX after opening an emergency exit door aboard the plane and causing the emergency slide to activate. The plane was reversing from its gate when the man opened the gate.
