Smoke Fills Ft. Lauderdale Plane Cabin, Forces Emergency Landing
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FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – A flight from Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport to New York had to make an emergency landing on Thursday.
Delta Flight 2028 was forced to make an emergency landing with 89 passengers on board in Charleston, South Carolina after the cabin filled with smoke.
"When we first took off, I noticed the plane wasn't taking off the way it normally does," one passenger told CBS 2.
"It smelled like something was burning," said another.
60 Minutes producer Katherine Davis was on the flight.
She explained, "We could hear the beeping of the smoke alarm. The cabin was filling up with smoke pretty quickly."
According to the FAA, the crew reported smoke in the cockpit and a problem with one of the jet's two engines more than an hour into the flight. Investigators say the pilot shut down the problematic engine.
"It was a little nerve wracking. They told all of us to put our heads down in our laps because the air would be fresher," said Davis.
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Another passenger tweeted a picture showing the smoke inside the plane, calling the experience the "scariest flight ever."
After the emergency stop in South Carolina, passengers arrived at LaGuardia late Thursday night.
"It was just very surreal because that's how I woke up. I woke up to smoke and the alarm," said passenger Fabio Diaz.
"The plane was very, very dense. I really couldn't see. But they told everybody to put their heads down in their laps as much as they could because the air is clearer down there," said passenger Karen Hoxer.
No one was hurt from the incident and Delta engineers are working to determine exactly what went wrong on the MD-88 aircraft. That type of airplane is one of the older models. It was first introduced into Delta's fleet in 1988 and was the same model that crashed into the fence at La Guardia earlier this year.
Passengers credited the flight crew for keeping everyone calm.