ATLANTA — Passengers who had to evacuate a Delta flight at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport did whatever they could to get to safety. Video showed the chaotic scene as some ended up on the wing of the plane.
In video shot by passengers, you can say the cabin filled with a haze.
“Are they returning to the airport?” you hear one passenger say.
It all began to unfold minutes after Delta Flight 876 took off. It quickly returned to the airport because of what Delta called haze in the aircraft. Airport sources said it was smoke.
The slides were deployed as passengers had to quickly exit the Boeing 717 aircraft. Then you see video of the chaotic evacuation.
“I got her. Here come here. I got her,” you hear one woman say, as a passenger has trouble getting out. And this group is not using the slides.
“Oh we on the wing. Uh oh,” you hear a passenger say.
“I’m stuck,” someone says.
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“How we gonna get off this wing? We gotta go down. Where we get out at?” passengers asked.
One woman grabbed her luggage on the way out. Another passenger lost her shoe.
“I’ll grab her shoe. I got your shoe. OK,” you hear someone say.
The flight left Atlanta around 8:30 a.m. Monday with 94 passengers, 2 pilots and 3 flight attendants and was headed to Columbia, South Carolina.
Delta said the flight crew followed procedures and returned to Atlanta because of the haze.
Video after the evacuation shows the passengers on the tarmac. One picture shows them boarding a bus headed back to the airport. Delta did not say if anyone suffered injury.
“I feel safer than being on 285,” one woman said who arrived and hadn’t heard of the mishap.
Other passengers weren’t too concerned about the incident or another Delta flight that had to be evacuated here because of smoke in the engine back in January. Or the Delta flight that crashed in Canada.
Earl Johnson of Fayette County said nothing will stop him from flying.
“No, it won’t stop me. I gotta keep flying. I’m going to get on there. I’m going to just pray and get on there,” Johnson said.
Delta said nothing is more important than the safety of its customers. And it apologized for what they went through.
It said it was working to help customers get to their final destinations.
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