Bad Delta flight from Lagos, Nigeria

[wesheltonj]

Tuesday night a Delta flight from Lagos, Nigeria (LOS) to Atlanta (ATL) experienced serious engine issues, requiring the crew to make an immediate emergency landing back at Lagos. The airport’s fire authorities scrambled to meet the plane once on the ground.

The issue was determined to be serious enough that the crew initiated an emergency evacuation with the aircraft landed. While all passengers and crew were able to safely evacuate the aircraft, in a statement to TPG, Delta said it is “aware of five customers reporting non-critical injuries as a result of the evacuation.”

The aircraft involved in the incident is a 12-year old Airbus A330-200 with the registration number N858NW. Delta flight 55 was scheduled to depart at 10:25pm local time Tuesday night (4:25pm Eastern Time). According to FlightRadar24 data, the flight pushed back at 10:42pm and took off at 10:52pm. The aircraft landed back at Lagos at 11:00pm, just eight minutes after takeoff.

It’s very unusual for an aircraft departing on a long-haul flight to land so shortly after takeoff, and typically indicates a potentially life-threatening situation. Usually in these situations the aircraft weight is well above the maximum weight allowed for a safe landing, requiring the crew to dump fuel and/or circle.

There’s no indication at this time whether Delta flight 55 was able to dump fuel or was overweight at the time of the emergency landing.

This incident comes just a few days after a Saratov Airlines flight crashed outside Moscow shortly after takeoff.

Here are next steps from the company:

Delta teams are focused now on providing overnight hotel accommodations to customers and will rebook customers on an alternate Delta aircraft Wednesday. The safety of Delta’s customers and crew members is always our top priority.

Featured image by Kentaro Iemoto/Flickr

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

Might would think @Royal27 was on the flight.......

 

[cpr0312]

Yikes! Glad all is well

 

[Royal27]

Might would think @Royal27 was on the flight.......

No joke....

 

[K-man]

They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one! Glad they didn't have any major injuries, I have witnessed two airplane crashes, one non-injury and one not so good. makes me want to kiss the ground every time I land.

 

[CAustin]

They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one! Glad they didn't have any major injuries, I have witnessed two airplane crashes, one non-injury and one not so good. makes me want to kiss the ground every time I land.

Thanks be that they returned quickly given the pilot thought he needed to do so.

 

[Philip Glass]

Scary stuff!

 

[Bullthrower338]

In that 8 minutes, Delta would have lost my luggage!

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

WOW! Having lived in Lagos for almost 6 years (and just recently repatriated to Houston), I flew this flight many times. Never a fun flight, even when everything goes right. Delta had been flying 767s on this flight, but just a few months ago they replaced it with the Airbus 330. Will have to contact some friends still in Lagos and see what they have heard.

I had a bad experience on the ATL-LOS flight once, due to a rowdy passenger. Right after take off, around midnight, from Atlanta we had to turn around and land. Couldn't dump fuel, landed heavy and blew a tire. Sky marshals escorted the troublemaker off the plane. We sat on the ground for a couple hours, they fed us dinner and then told everybody to get off and they had hotel rooms for all of us. I can't imagine how this would have played out in Lagos.

 

[johnnyblues]

Not a funny situation at all.. I for one would like to know what happened. You would expect a major airline to have its shit together on something like this.

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

Local Nigeria newspapers says an engine caught fire.

https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/fire-engulfs-lagos-atlanta-bound-delta-plane-s-engine.html


Fire engulfs Lagos - Atlanta bound Delta plane's engine

The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) have commissioned an investigation into how a US- bound Delta Airline's aircraft lost one of its engines to fire one hour after take-off for the 13- hour long haul flight.


The flight which departed the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos at around 10:30 p.m Tuesday night had an emergency air return after the left engine was engulfed in fire.


The plane - A330-200 - landed successfully with all the passengers evacuated though five of them were injured.


Director General of NCAA, Captain Mukhtar Usman said investigation is ongoing by the AIB to find out the cause of the engine fire, whether minor or serious.


"Officials of the AIB are there investigating, if it is serious, the AIB will be working with the US National Transportation Safety board, NTSB”, he said.


A preliminary report from the NCAA read: "The flight which initially pushed back at 22:40hrs had Air Return /Emergency landing at 23:16hrs, when the pilot in command (PIC) announced the evacuation of all the passengers on board within 90seconds, after contacting the Control Towers because the left Engine of the Aircraft was said to have caught Fire mid air in-flight.


"Passengers were being evacuated via the emergency sliding door within few seconds.


"All Airport agencies Officials on duty were on ground within few minutes that the emergency alarm was announced including AVSEC, NCAA-CPOS, FAAN FIRE SERVICE, PORT HEALTH AND AVIATION CLINIC, QUARANTINE, NDLEA ETC.


"Although there is no death recorded as at the time of filing this report but quite a number of crew and passenger casualties were recorded and have been taken to LASUTH IKEJA, AIR FORCE BASE CLINIC, and FAAN MEDICAL CENTRE for speedy medical attention.


"Meanwhile, the Delta Aircraft was still on the Runway for over 1hr which led to it’s closure before KLM, LUFTHANSA and AIR FRANCE depart afterwards.

The aircraft was later towed with a push back truck to the open parking bay close to Boarding gate E63."


Delta Airline in a statement confirmed that five passengers with "non- critical" injuries were hospitalized while the remaining passengers were put in different hotels.



The airline's statement read: "Delta flight 55 from Lagos, Nigeria to Atlanta returned to Lagos International Airport Tuesday after an issue with one of the A330-200's two engines. The flight landed safely and customers exited the aircraft on the runway via emergency slides. Airport fire authorities met the aircraft upon arrival. Delta’s customers were bussed back to the terminal.


"Delta is aware of five customers reporting non-critical injuries as a result of the evacuation.


"Delta teams have provided overnight hotel accommodations to customers and will rebook customers on an alternate Delta aircraft Wednesday afternoon. The safety of Delta’s customers and crew members is always our top priority."

 

[YancyW]

Scary stuff. As someone who has probably been on 1000+ flights in my life, I am not ashamed to admit it still scares the crap out of me every single time I step foot on a plane. I know the statistics and understand how safe it is, but I have never been able to overcome being afraid to fly.

 

[dory]

Story we heard down here is the toilet was blocked and the pilot couldnt hold on ,
As he had to many G&Gs prior to take off .
True story , really it is !

 

[wesheltonj]

Scary stuff. As someone who has probably been on 1000+ flights in my life, I am not ashamed to admit it still scares the crap out of me every single time I step foot on a plane. I know the statistics and understand how safe it is, but I have never been able to overcome being afraid to fly.

You are like me, the odds will start to work against you the more flight you take.