Report says thick smoke filled the cabin of a Delta plane that took off from Atlanta in February
The smoke that filled the cabin of a Delta flight as it took off from the Atlanta airport in February was so thick that the lead flight attendant had trouble seeing past the first row of passengers and the pilots donned oxygen masks as a precaution.
The National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report Wednesday that the plane quickly returned to the airport on the morning of Feb. 24 and evacuated all 99 people aboard. Two people sustained minor injuries during the evacuation, but no one was hurt by the smoke.
Initially, the airline described the incident as just a haze inside the Boeing 717 aircraft. Delta didn't immediately respond to questions about the incident Wednesday afternoon.
The flight attendants reported that the smoke began near one of the doors in the front of the plane before it also started coming out of all the vents throughout the plane, according to the report. The flight attendants tried contacting the pilots but initially couldn't reach them because they were focused on emergency procedures and flying the plane.
The flight attendants assured passengers they were trained for the situation and asked them to remain calm.
Shortly after the smoke appeared, the NTSB said, the pilots got a low oil pressure alarm for the right engine, so they shut it down as they were returning to the airport. When maintenance personnel inspected that engine after the plane landed they found little or no oil in the engine.
The NTSB hasn't determined if that oil leak was the cause of the smoke. That won't be established until the agency completes its full report sometime next year.
The plane was met by firefighters when it landed, and when the pilots opened the flight deck door, they 'noticed a tremendous amount of smoke in the cabin, and the captain immediately ordered an evacuation,' the report said.
Passengers evacuated the plane through a combination of the emergency slides at the front and back of the plane and climbing off the wing.
The flight's destination had been Columbia, South Carolina.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scroll.in
an hour ago
- Scroll.in
‘Learning to Make Tea for One': Writer Andaleeb Wajid's memoir reflects quiet strength during losses
In her memoir of loss, Learning to Make Tea for One, Andaleeb Wajid writes, 'When 1st June arrived, I went to the hospital with a heavy heart once more. It was our twenty-fourth wedding anniversary. I tweeted that he was on the ventilator instead of being home with us … I got a barrage of wishes from people, and many said they were praying for him to get better.' On June 3, Wajid's husband, Mansoor, breathed his last, one of the countless lives that were cut short by the brutal Delta wave of the COVID-19 pandemic that raged through the world, hitting India especially hard, in the summer of 2021. The memoir takes us right back to those dreadful months when Death played Russian roulette and people, young and old, rich and poor, men and women, were indiscriminately snatched away from our midst with barely a warning. The pandemic was a great leveller; none were spared, but not everybody was equally impacted. Within a space of a couple of days, Wajid, who herself had tested positive and was hospitalised, lost her mother-in-law and her husband, and life as she knew it changed forever. Learning to Make Tea for One traces Wajid's journey of navigating through devastating loss and coming to terms with a 'new normal' – a phrase we use quite casually but one that marks the truth of Wajid's life. Grief is hard to process and even harder to articulate, and this makes the labyrinthine journey of negotiating it a very lonely one. This is ironic because grief is a universal emotion, one that every single one of us encounters in some shape or form at some point in life. But each grief is different and so is every experience of it, making it a shared but ultimately a lonely experience. The truth of this was perhaps most evident during the cruel pandemic, as its very nature made it impossible for us to reach out to one another at a time when we needed to do so the most. Perhaps there was also a sense of futility that accompanied those worst affected and prevented them from reaching out because as Wajid reiterates, ultimately, they were in it alone. Wajid was surrounded by family, but as she remembers, the presence of familiar faces only heightened the absence of that one face she needed to see the most and was lost forever. Though Wajid writes about seeking help through grief counselling, perhaps for a writer, writing what must have been a painful reconstruction of the past, was possibly the best way of coming to terms with her irreparable loss. Writing as recovery Even as one turns the first few pages of the memoir, a couple of things stand out. The first is the surreal nature of those days of the pandemic when the most regular, natural order of things – the song of a cuckoo, buying groceries, a phone call from family or a friend, were the only sources of relief in troubled times. Wajid's narration vividly brings alive a time when words such as 'co-morbidities' and 'saturation' became part of our everyday vocabulary, and one constantly lived in a state of mental fugue. The memoir also depicts the state of denial that Wajid lived in through those days, and perhaps, in some ways, continues to grapple with, possibly as a survival strategy. The chapter titled 'Everything is Fine' underlines this fact and it is only after one comes to terms with Mansoor's death that the undeniable premise of this memoir is unequivocally articulated – something that Wajid is unable to state at the onset simply because of the immensity of her grief. The memoir tends to meander into the past, digress into anecdotes, mostly about ordinary, everyday things – the Friday ritual of making biryani, Mansoor's love for Tamil songs and branded clothes, their shared love for notebooks – but like a refrain, the memoir keeps returning to the inescapable days and moments leading to Mansoor's death. But it is also through these meanderings that Mansoor comes alive, and you get a glimpse of the person that he was, and the life that he shared with his wife, sons and his mother. Loss is not something Wajid is unfamiliar with, having lost her father at the young age of 12, and two heartbreaking miscarriages she underwent before she had her youngest. But in many ways, the memoir also suggests that loss is what initiated Wajid into her journey of becoming a writer. Women's writing across cultural and other divides has helped women recover a voice that is often silenced. Writing has therefore been a survival strategy adopted by women. Wajid does the same with her writing – the memoir illustrates how writing became a means of emancipation for a girl who was married young. It gave her a livelihood and a career that she could not have otherwise envisioned for herself. In one of her most widely read novels, More Than Biryani, a mother and daughter come to terms with the loss of the father and surviving without the privilege of education and financial independence. But unlike them, Wajid had both and the memoir takes forward the journey she had hesitantly embarked on. It's now a journey that includes several romances, award-winning books for young adults and even a novel that has been adapted for the screen. Beyond carrying on Writing about grief isn't easy, reliving trauma isn't easy, and it certainly isn't easy to let strangers read about it. But Wajid writes this memoir with searing honesty – she doesn't hesitate to talk about a marriage between two very different personalities and how they settled into an easy companionship, of being assuaged by various kinds of guilt and making her peace with them, of her privilege that allowed her husband to have the best possible medical care while hundreds were gasping for breath, her not having to deal with the minutiae of life till she was in a better space, and so on. There is also the danger in such a memoir of infringing upon the privacy of a person who is no longer around to consent to what is being said about him or her. But Wajid does it in a remarkably sensitive manner, sharing just enough about her husband to enable her readers to see him for the person that he was but never over-sharing. Similarly, one sees her and her children at their most vulnerable moments and yet those moments are described with a quiet dignity and not with melodrama. She makes no attempt to evoke a reader's pity. What emerges is a story of quiet strength, of people dealing with the worst hand life can deal but soldiering on, even reclaiming some semblance of joy and demonstrating a resilience that life has a way of squeezing out of you. Many years back, struggling with a personal loss, I had read Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, a thoughtful gift from a dear friend. There was much in there that helped me to understand my own grief, but the opening scene of the parents sitting down for dinner, opening a bottle of wine while their daughter lay in the ICU of a hospital, left me with a sense of disconnect. Siddharth Dhanvant Shangvi's Loss continues to sit on my bedside table because while he so movingly writes about loss, he also perceptively shares that 'grief is not a record of what has been lost but of who has been loved.' But the real and raw feelings that Andaleeb Wajid's memoir evokes made it difficult for me to read it without tears blurring the print, but it also held out gentle hope that tomorrow will be better, that tomorrow one will live again, laugh again, even thrive. And this is what makes Learning to Make Tea for One an inspiring, even therapeutic read.
NDTV
2 days ago
- NDTV
How Black Box's Discovery Brings Investigators Closer To Reason Behind Air India Crash
New Delhi: The black box from Air India's ill-fated Ahmedabad-London flight was recovered from the rooftop of the medical college hostel building it crashed into minutes after take-off on Thursday. Its recovery brings investigators closer to ascertaining the reason behind the crash in which 241 on board the Air India flight and another five people on ground were killed. What Is A Black Box? A black consists of two devices - the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR). The CVR collects radio transmissions and sounds such as the pilot's voices and engine noises, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)'s website. Investigators can also attempt to track engine noise, stall warnings and other clicks and pops that are recorded. Apart from communication within the cockpit, interaction with the Air Traffic Controller (ATC). This assumes significance as pilots in the AI171 had issued a "Mayday" distress call seconds before plummeting from a height of 625 feet. The FDR monitors a plane's altitude, airspeed and heading, according to the NTSB. Those factors are among at least 88 parameters that newly built planes must monitor. Some can collect the status of more than 1,000 other characteristics, from a wing's flap position to the smoke alarms. The NTSB said it can generate a computer-animated video reconstruction of the flight from the information collected. the FDR carries 25 hours of information, including prior flights within that time span, which may provide hints about the cause of a mechanical failure on a later flight, per The Associated Press. Where Is The Black Box Placed And What Does It Look Like? It is placed in the tail end of the aircraft, which is considered to be a part that is most likely to survive crashes. The black boxes are designed to withstand high impact, fire and deep sea pressure, being made from robust materials like titanium or stainless steel. In the case of Thursday's crash, the aircraft's tail end crashed into the medical college's hostel building in Ahmedabad. The black box was retrieved from the rooftop of this building. Contrary to its name, the black box is usually orange or yellow in colour to allow easy visibility. How Will The Black Box Data Help? Many questions surround the circumstances that led to the fatal crash of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner on Thursday, the first of its kind the aircraft debuted in 2011. Some pertain to what happened in the last 30 seconds of the flight, why the plane was not able to pick up thrust, and if any faults arose with the flaps or engine controls. Details from the black box will also help segregate technical from human fault, apart from giving a clear sequence of events. Where Will Data Of Crashed Air India Plane Likely Be Retrieved? Earlier this year, Digital Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder (DFDR & CVR) Laboratory was inaugurated in Delhi, where retrieved flight data from aircraft can be analysed. The state-of-the-art facility will enable Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) to repair damaged black boxes, retrieve data, and conduct thorough analyses of accidents and incidents. Black Boxes Not 100% Reliable Though largely reliable in finding the root cause behind aviation accidents, black boxes have also known to present its limitations. A Jeju Air plane flying from Bangkok to South Korea with 181 people on board crashed on landing Sunday, killing 179 people on board. It black box was recovered, but analysis by the NTSB found that crucial data from the last few minutes of the flight was wiped out. In the case of the notorious downing and disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March 2014, the signals that would emanate from the black box were not detected during search operations.
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Indian Express
Air India plane crash: Were Boeing 787's flaps retracted?
Several aviation enthusiasts and experts have speculated whether the flaps of the Air India 171 (Boeing 787 Dreamliner), which crashed on Thursday in Ahmedabad, were retracted while analysing the video of the crash. Flaps are retractable surfaces on the trailing edge of wings. An aircraft, during the take-off and landing phases when its speed is slow, requires extra 'lift' — the upward, aerodynamic force generated by the wings that keeps a plane aloft. This extra lift is provided by the flaps, which increase the wing surface area. Flaps are extended by either of the pilots manually before take-off and landing. Extended flaps are set at different degrees depending on requirement. In all other phases of flight, the flaps remain retracted. Crashed Dreamliner's flaps It appears from the pictures of the wreckage that the flaps were in an extended position, and not retracted, as speculated. Extending the flaps for take-off is part of the 'before take-off' checklist and is done on the ground when the aircraft is on the apron or taxiway. This takes place much before an aircraft enters the runway, and begins its take-off roll and gets airborne. If the crew misses this vital checklist item, the 787's warning system will warn the pilots about the incorrect flap settings. Speaking to The Indian Express, Greg Feith (67), former senior air safety investigator with the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said: 'The thing that's curious about the video is that the flaps appear to be up or at a minimal setting that wouldn't be typical of a normal takeoff.' David Learmount, Consulting Editor, FlightGlobal, on his blog wrote, 'Looking at a video of the last few seconds of the flight, the landing gear still remains down, the flaps look as if they are still at a take-off setting, and the aircraft is in a steady descent which only ended in impact with buildings and the ground'. As for why the landing gear was still down, it is likely that the pilots, dealing with the emergency, had no time to retract the gear. V1, Vr, V2 speeds These are three critical speeds during the take-off phase. Rolling down the runway for take-off but not airborne yet, as an aircraft attains V1 speed, the plane's Captain has to decide whether to continue or reject the take-off. If the Captain feels something is not alright, it is her last chance to stop the take-off. V1 is also called the take-off decision speed. Once an aircraft has crossed the V1 point, it is unsafe to reject the take-off as the available runway length may be insufficient to stop the aircraft. Vr is the rotation speed or lift-off speed. At this point, the monitoring pilot calls 'rotate' and the pilot flying gently raises the nose. The wings are producing sufficient lift and the aircraft becomes airborne. V2 or the take-off safety speed is the minimum speed at which an aircraft can climb safely with one engine. V1, Vr and V2 speeds vary for every flight, calculated on the basis of aircraft weight, runway length, weather etc. From the videos, it is evident the Air India 171 did not encounter any problems during the V1 and Vr phases, but experienced problems during the climb phase.
