KHQ

Delta Airlines Flight 128 sits on the tarmac at Spokane International Airport after being diverted shortly after takeoff due to a medical emergency onboard.

A Delta Airlines flight from Seattle to Atlanta was rerouted to Spokane International Airport in Washington state shortly after takeoff on Saturday due to a medical emergency that left a 16-year-old male passenger dead, officials said. 

Spokane International officials stated that the teenager “regretfully died” shortly after Delta Flight 128 took off, bound for Atlanta. Pilots diverted to Spokane, the closest airport, upon learning of the emergency.

The cause of death was not immediately known. Local authorities and a medical examiner were summoned to the airport, NBC affiliate KHQ reported.

The teenager was not immediately identified, but the Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted Spokane Assistant Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer as saying that he was originally from the Atlanta metro area and was accompanying an unspecified number of family members to visit relatives in Georgia for Christmas. His father is in the military and is stationed in Washington, Schaeffer told the newspaper.

The newspaper quoted Joe Ryan, a passenger aboard the plane, as saying that the medical emergency occurred shortly after takeoff.

“The plane never really got too high,” he said. “The pilot all of the sudden got on the intercom and said there was a passenger in dire need (of medical attention).” 

Ryan said the teen and what he believed to be the teen’s family members were seated somewhere in the plane behind him. The teen was taken to the rear of the jet where flight attendants and possibly others attempted lifesaving measures, Ryan said.

The remaining 258 passengers were removed from the plane and have boarded others, continuing to their destination, officials said.

Delta representatives did not release the name of the teenager and did not say if attempts to revive the boy continued after the plane landed.

A Delta Airlines flight from Seattle to Atlanta was rerouted to Spokane International Airport in Washington state shortly after takeoff on Saturday due to a medical emergency that left a 16-year-old male passenger dead, officials said. 

Spokane International officials stated that the teenager “regretfully died” shortly after Delta Flight 128 took off, bound for Atlanta. Pilots diverted to Spokane, the closest airport, upon learning of the emergency.

The cause of death was not immediately known. Local authorities and a medical examiner were summoned to the airport, NBC affiliate KHQ reported.

The remaining 258 passengers were removed from the plane and have boarded others, continuing to their destination, officials said.

Delta representatives did not release the name of the teenager and did not say if attempts to revive the boy continued after the plane landed.

A Delta Airlines flight bound for New York was forced to make an emergency landing in Madrid Wednesday, after a hydraulics problem burst open part of the plane’s wing shortly after takeoff.

Startled passengers aboard the Boeing 767-300ER snapped pictures of the jet’s damaged wing, from which a compartment panel had fallen, exposing “mechanical innards,” writes the New York Daily News. In one picture, an unidentified mechanical component sits on the wing, next to the hole from which it appears to have burst.

(Story continues below.)

El ala del avión antes del aterrizaje de emergencia @Delta airlines Mad-NYork #desastredeltaairlines pic.twitter.com/lDD8UyKk75

— Ana Arias (@ariasanna) December 5, 2013

En el despegue ha estallado creemos que la rueda del lado derecho. Desde dentro se veía esto en el ala pic.twitter.com/ZUaUiXjEMy

— Ana Arias (@ariasanna) December 5, 2013

Delta spokesman Morgan Durrant told The Associated Press the plane landed safely, and that none of the 200 passengers or 11 crew members aboard were injured. Durrant declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation.

The Local, an English-language Spanish news site, pointed to a tweet from Madrid air traffic controllers which said a hydraulics issue is thought to be the cause of the wing damage.

In an emailed statement to The Huffington Post, a Delta spokesperson added:

After receiving indication of a hydraulics issue after departure, the flight crew of Delta flight 415 from Madrid to New York-JFK returned to Madrid. Upon landing, tires on the main landing gear deflated and the aircraft came to rest … safely on the airfield. Buses were dispatched to deplane customers back to the terminal. There are no reports of injuries.

Safety is always Delta’s top priority. The aircraft, a Boeing 767-300ER, is being examined by technicians. There were 200 customers and 11 crew members on the flight. Customers are being re-accommodated on other flights today.

(CNN) –

Delta Airlines said Tuesday that it didn’t bump 50 passengers just to accommodate the travel plans of a nationally ranked college basketball team on Sunday, one of the busiest travel days of the year.

A spokesman for the carrier said the plane the 15th-ranked University of Florida Gators were supposed to use had an engine problem, so the carrier put them on another jet out of Gainesville while workers tried to fix the issue.

When the problem couldn’t be solved, Delta booked many of the 50 passengers headed to Atlanta on a later flight. A handful of passengers left on flights Monday, Morgan Durrant said.

The story made national sports websites Monday with headlines like “Delta bumps entire flight to accommodate the Florida basketball team,” but Durrant said the fact that it was a charter flight played no role in the plane swap. Flight schedules weigh heavily on operational decisions, he said.

The Gators were due to take off at 3 p.m., and the commercial flight was scheduled to depart about a half-hour later. ExpressJet, the regional carrier that operated both flights, assured Delta that it would have the problem solved in time, Durrant said.

“We don’t bias toward the chartered side of the business,” Durrant said, pointing out that such flights make up a tiny percentage of Delta’s business. “All of our customers have somewhere to go.”

Earlier, Durant told CNN that none of the 50 passengers had been pulled off their original flight, and they were all offered vouchers toward a future flight.

A spokesman for the Gators said they had no idea the planes had been swapped.

“UF was not part of the decision-making process,” Denver Parler said. “We arrived, boarded and departed as we normally would.”

The Gators lost the Monday game, by the way, dropping a last-second 65-64 decision to the Connecticut Huskies.

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Florida Gators head coach Billy Donovan talks to his players as they take on the Connecticut Huskies in the second half at Harry A. Gampel Pavilion. UConn defeated Florida Gators 65-64.
( David Butler II-USA TODAY / December 2, 2013)

UConn Huskies knock off Florida Gators

Delta Airlines left a group of irritated travelers in the wake of the Gators basektball team on Sunday after mechanical problems grounded the team charter to Connecticut.

The Gainesville Sun reported that dozens of people missed their connections after Delta Airlines canceled a flight from Gainesville to Atlanta and re-designated the 50-seat airplane as a charter for the Gators.

Delta Connection Flight 5059 was scheduled to leave at 3:26 p.m., but some of the passengers were dealyed until as late as Monday. One passenger told the Sun that others had to be driven to airports in Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa to catch alternate flights.

One passenger missed a funeral, while another had to be driven by her father to Atlanta, the Sun reported.

The Gators were scheduled to meet Connecticut at 7 p.m. Monday night.

“It just felt like the wrong decision made by somebody who didn’t think it through,” the passenger, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Sun.

She said passengers were told their plane had a mechanical failure, but then some noticed through a window the Gators were boarding their airplane.

Delta spokesman Michael Thomas told the Sun passengers were booked on other flights and given vouchers for future travel.

Delta also made a statement through UF, stating, “the University of Florida in no way participated in the decision-making process.”

The Gators would go on to lose the game game 65-64 when Uconn guard Shabazz Napier hit a buzzer-beating jump shot.

The Gators found another way to frustrate some their fan base a day after the school wrapped up its first losing football season since 1979.

Read the full story here.

Email Edgar Thompson at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com. Read the Swamp Things blog at www.orlandosentinel.com/swampthings. Follow our UF coverage on Twitter @osgators.

Delta Airlines Booted About 50 People Off Flight to Make Room for Florida Men’s Basketball Team

Maybe the Saints should change airlines, because a college basketball team is getting better service.

The Saints couldn’t have wanted to get out of Seattle any quicker following a 34-7 shellacking at the hands of the Seahawks on Monday night, but they couldn’t even get off the ground due to some airplane malfunctions after the loss. The University of Florida men’s basketball team experienced a very different airline experience just a day earlier, though.

Delta forced almost 50 passengers at the Gainesville, Fla., airport to reconfigure their travel plans on Sunday afternoon so that the University of Florida men’s basketball team could use their plane, according to the Gainesville Sun. The team’s original flight was delayed due to maintenance, so they managed to charter the Delta flight to take them to Storrs, Conn., where they were set to play UConn — and eventually lose 66-65 on a last-second buzzer beater — on Monday night.

The airline canceled flight 5059, which was originally scheduled to depart for Atlanta at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday. One unidentified passenger told the Gainesville Sun that passengers were told the flight was being cancelled due to “mechanical difficulty,” but that some of them noticed the Gators boarding their plane soon thereafter.

Delta found new flights for all of the inconvenienced passengers and offered flight vouchers for future Delta trips, although at least one of the passengers was unable to catch a new flight until sometime Monday.

The Gainesville Sun reports: A Delta Airlines commercial flight Sunday was canceled and the passengers forced to find other transportation so that the plane could be used by the Florida men’s basketball team.

A maintenance delay grounded the aircraft that was to take the basketball team to Storrs, Conn., for a Monday night game against Connecticut. A Delta spokesman said displaced passengers from the canceled flight were given vouchers and accommodated on other flights.

Get the full story: Gainesville.com