By Micheal Chukwuebuka, Reporting
A JetBlue flight made an emergency landing in Kansas Saturday after pilots were alerted to smoke in the cargo hold, NBC News has reported.
An inspection later revealed it was a false alarm.
The airline, in a statement, said the plane descended safely and landed without incident.
According to passenger Seth Odell, Flight 1189 was traveling from New York to San Diego when the pilot announced that an alert was received for fire or smoke in the cargo hold area.
The Salina Airport Authority said there were about 130 people on board.
“The pilot came on [the intercom] and let us know that he was seeing an alert for smoke in the cargo bay.
“Some passengers did report hearing a loud bang, too, and so we descended incredibly rapidly and landed in the extremely small airport in Salina,” Odell said.
Odell shared that there were only about 10 minutes between the pilot’s announcement and the subsequent landing in Kansas.
“So obviously everybody was starting to freak out.
“Some people were crying. It was a little bit intense for a few minutes.
“Crew did a great job getting everybody organized extremely quickly, and obviously once we were on the ground, everyone was just elated,” Odell said.
The Salina Fire Department responded to the airport at around 6:20 p.m. CT and the plane landed around 10 minutes later, according to Salina Fire Battalion Chief Derrick Herzog.
The department helped offload all 130 people, who included passengers and staff.
As of the time of filing this report, no injuries had been reported.
Herzog said there were no major issues with the plane, but indicator lights had come on in the cockpit.
The issue appears to be an electrical one, but the fire department is still waiting for engineers to investigate, Herzog added.
Odell said the plane’s pilot told passengers that there was no indication of an actual fire once they had landed.
“It sounds like they said some fire suppressant was used in the cargo area, but they’re not sure if there was a fire,” Odell said.
What's your reaction?
