SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating after a Delta Air Lines flight leaving Salt Lake City last weekend developed cabin pressure issues and left some passengers with bleeding eardrums, headaches, and bloody noses.
The flight was traveling Sunday from Salt Lake City to Portland, Oregon, when pilots of the five-year-old Boeing 737-900ER aircraft noticed a pressurization problem and made an emergency landing back in Utah’s capital, according to the flight log.
Passengers told television station KSL they noticed people bleeding as the plane decreased in elevation over the Great Salt Lake. Pilots announced they were returning to the airport but did not explain why, passenger Caryn Allen said. Oxygen masks did not deploy.
Allen described watching her husband cover his ears in pain while other passengers tried to help a man on the other side of the aisle who had an uncontrollable bloody nose.
Another passenger, Jaci Purser, told KSL it felt like someone was stabbing her inner ear.