The airline stated it will fully cooperate with the FAA investigation into the incident
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) launched an investigation on Tuesday into a Delta Air Lines flight in which part of a wing partially detached during its route from Florida to Texas.
The malfunction occurred as flight 1893 flew from Orlando to Austin on Tuesday with “a portion of the left wing’s flag… not in place,” according to an airline statement. No injuries were reported among the 62 passengers and 6 crew members aboard the flight.
Data from FlightAware shows the Boeing 737-800 landed safely at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, its originally scheduled destination, around 2:30 p.m. after departing Orlando International Airport.
A spokesperson for the airline could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
Delta said in a statement that the faulty plane was taken out of service for maintenance, forcing two flights scheduled for Wednesday to be cancelled.
We apologize to our customers for their experience as nothing is more important than the safety of our people and customers, the airline said.
Shanila Arif, one of the passengers, told KXAN that the broken wing was visible during the flight.
During the flight, while the plane was at an altitude of approximately 12,000 feet, we noticed that a part of the wing had broken and was visibly detached, Arif said. “This is a serious safety event.”
Footage from Arif showed a piece of the left wing flap slightly hanging off its connection point to the rest of the wing.
“The plane was shaking,” Arif told CNN. “The lady in front of us opened the window and told us it is broken. I opened the window and got scared.
The airline stated it would cooperate fully with the FAA investigation.
The incident came as proposed class actions were filed against United in San Francisco federal court and against Delta in Brooklyn federal court. Both seek millions of dollars of damages for more than 1 million passengers of each carrier.
According to the complaints, some Boeing 737, Boeing 757 and Airbus A321 planes have seats that would normally contain windows, but lack them because of the placement of air conditioning ducts, electrical conduits or other components.
Passengers said that both airlines failed to flag these seats during the booking process, despite charging tens of occasionally hundreds of dollars for them. Rivals such as Alaska Airlines and American Airlines have flagged these types of seats.
The lawsuits state that people specifically book window seats for reasons, some of which include addressing the fear of flying, motion sickness, getting extra light, or occupying a child.
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