JetBlue flight makes emergency touchdown in Kansas over smoke alert in ‘intense jiffy’ that left vacationers in tears

A JetBlue flight was compelled to make a fast emergency touchdown in Kansas — leaving some passengers in tears — Saturday night after pilots had been alerted to potential smoke within the cargo maintain, officers mentioned.

The cross-country flight took off from New York Metropolis’s JFK Airport and was destined for San Diego however was diverted to Salina, Kansas round 6:30 p.m. over what finally was a false alarm, JetBlue mentioned in an announcement Sunday.

“JetBlue flight 1189 diverted to Salina, Kansas, when the pilots acquired an alert that there is perhaps smoke within the cargo maintain, descending safely and touchdown with out incident,” a JetBlue spokesperson mentioned in an e-mail.

“Upon inspection, we decided the smoke indication introduced to our pilots was a false indication.”

The airplane dropped down greater than 30,000 ft in lower than 10 minutes because it landed on the airport, based on Flight Radar 24 knowledge reported on by KAKE.

However because the Airbus A320 was nonetheless within the air, the stress — and concern — was palpable among the many roughly 130 passengers.

Passenger Seth Odell mentioned the pilot introduced over the intercom that he noticed an alert for smoke within the cargo bay, based on NBC Information.

“Some passengers did report listening to a loud bang, too, and so we descended extremely quickly and landed within the extraordinarily small airport in Salina,” he recalled, noting there was solely 10 minutes between the pilot’s report and touchdown.

“So clearly everyone was beginning to freak out,” Odell reportedly mentioned.

“Some individuals had been crying. It was just a little bit intense for a couple of minutes. Crew did a terrific job getting everyone organized extraordinarily shortly, and clearly as soon as we had been on the bottom, everybody was simply elated.”

Salina fireplace Battalion Chief Derrick Herzog mentioned there have been no main issues with the airplane, however the concern might need been electrical, based on the outlet.