A Boston-bound Delta Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Portugal after smoke filled the cabin – and four people were hospitalized.
The Airbus A330 left Barcelona, Spain, at 3:15 p.m. Sunday, but diverted to Porto, Portugal, after just two and a half hours of an eight-and-a-half-hour flight, according to FlightAware.
The plane suffered a mechanical problem, but a Portuguese official said smoke in the cabin forced the emergency landing.
Four people – three passengers and a crew member – were taken to a local hospital, Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Noticias reported.
“Two male passengers were admitted to the emergency room due to smoke inhalation, both have mild respiratory symptoms and are in stable condition,” a hospital spokesperson told the media outlet.
The plane, carrying 296 people, flew over Spain’s northern regions of La Rioja and Galicia and was heading towards the Atlantic Ocean when it was forced to divert some 500 miles from the Portuguese coast.
It had reached a maximum altitude of about 32,000 feet.
Twelve people required oxygen in the air, according to local reports, while eight people were treated on the tarmac at Francisco Sá Carneiro airport in Porto.
The other passengers were not transferred to an alternate Delta flight that evening.
A Boston-bound flight scheduled to depart from Porto at 1 p.m. Monday was canceled, according to FlightAware.
Delta will operate a flight to Boston from Barcelona at 3:15 p.m. Monday.
The Post has contacted Delta Airlines for comment.
The in-flight incident comes just over a month after a Delta plane bound for Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was forced to make an emergency landing in Atlanta after reporting the smell of smoke on board.
The flight left Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport around 7 a.m. on Aug. 13 before quickly returning 15 minutes later, “out of an abundance of caution,” an airline representative said of the incident.
With post wires.
Gn bussni
