A recent transatlantic flight of Delta Air Lines had to return to New York City after the cockpit crew smelled fumes in the plane. The aircraft was not too long into its flight to London Heathrow when the pilot requested to turn around to JFK Airport for a heavy landing.

Flight to London

Delta Air Lines
flight DL 3 is a daily scheduled service between New York JFK Airport and London Heathrow. With a scheduled departure of 22:05, it usually takes around six and a half hours to reach its destination. The airline deploys its Airbus A330-900neo on this route.

On September 12, the aircraft took off at 22:33 for its initial climb and flew out over the Atlantic Ocean. However, as the plane climbed out of New York, the pilots requested an intermediate altitude, not 37,000 feet as originally planned.

Delta Air Lines Airbus A330-900neo (N405DX).

Photo: The Global Guy | Shutterstock

While speaking with the ATC, the pilot did not elaborate on the reason at the time but said that they were working on an issue. Their request to maintain an altitude of 25,000 feet was granted. At this point, the plane was still heading towards London, and the pilots did not request any further assistance.

Crew smells fumes

A few minutes into the flight, the cockpit crew informed the ATC that they might need to return to JFK. After some time, the pilots communicated that they had, indeed, decided to return to New York JFK after they smelled fumes in the cabin.

The YouTube channel “You can see ATC” played out the conversation between the cockpit crew of the Delta flight and the air traffic control. The pilot communicating could be heard saying,

“Yes ma’am, at this time we need to return to Kennedy. If you can start working with us with vectors to go back to Kennedy. And the reason is … we have smell in the cabin of possible fumes.”

Screenshot 2024-09-16 102847

The ATC gave directions to the plane to turn around and, after some time, asked the pilots if they were declaring an emergency. After a brief pause, the pilot said that they were, indeed, declaring an emergency.

Heavy landing

As they made their way back to New York, the Delta pilot confirmed to the ATC that there were 293 souls onboard and about 8.5 hours of fuel remaining. This meant that the aircraft had to make a heavy landing. By this time, both pilots had put on their oxygen masks. They also requested medical assistance for a passenger at the gate at JFK.

The aircraft eventually made a safe landing, with no reported injuries. Simple Flying has contacted Delta for a comment and will update the article after a response is received. The aircraft, registered N404DX, performed another flight from New York to Seattle on September 14, as per Flightradar24. According to ch-aviation, the A330 is five years old and was delivered to Delta in 2019.

Delta Air Lines Airbus A330-900neo departing from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Photo: Jon Tetzlaff | Shutterstock

The possibility of a fire onboard is one of the worst-case scenarios for an aircraft, and pilots aim to land the plane as soon as possible at the slightest of a problem. In August, another Delta A330neo on a flight from Boston to Paris had to return after pilots smelled an unusual odor in the cabin.

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