Passengers aboard a Delta flight from New York to Los Angeles were startled Saturday when an inflatable emergency slide deployed inside the plane during an unscheduled landing in Salt Lake City.
The flight from John F. Kennedy Airport to Los Angeles International Airport with 168 passengers was diverted to Salt Lake City International Airport because of a maintenance issue. The Boeing 767-300 was on the ground when its emergency slide accidentally deployed, Delta said in a statement.
The airline said the unscheduled landing was not due to the slide.
"First time seeing an emergency slide deployed by accident INSIDE the plane," one passenger tweeted with a photo of the deployed slide blocking the aisle of the plane.
A crew member was taken to a hospital for evaluation and was later discharged, Delta said in the statement. Details about what triggered the deployment were not immediately available.
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Passengers transferred to a different aircraft for the final leg of their journey to Los Angeles. That flight landed Saturday night at LAX.
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The slides are designed to quickly deploy and inflate in an emergency, allowing passengers to exit the plane during an evacuation. They are packed and stored within commercial aircraft doors or fuselage and automatically deploy when an aircraft door is opened in the armed position.
In March, a Delta passenger was detained at LAX after opening an emergency exit door aboard the plane and causing the emergency slide to activate. The plane was pushing back from its gate when the man opened the door.
