Delta Air Lines plane makes emergency landing as passengers stuck on tiny island

Nearly 300 passengers on a Delta Air Lines flight to New York ended up on a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic after a plane suffered “mechanical issues”.

An emergency landing was carried out on the island of Terceira, in the Azores, by pilots on Delta flight 127 travelling from Madrid to New York’s John F Kennedy airport last Sunday. The flight landed safely and customers were able to disembark via stairs within an hour of landing, an airline spokesperson said. There were 282 passengers and 13 crew members onboard who spent the night in Lajes, a village on the island.

Accommodation and food was provided by the airline and the passengers spent around 29 hours on the island before they were able to continue their journey on to the United States.

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It is understood travellers were put on a replacement plane while mechanics fixed the issue with other aircraft. Delta has not said exactly what the problem was, other than that the pilots received “indication of a mechanical issue with an engine” leading them to land in the Azores.

"As safety comes before all else at Delta, the flight crew followed procedures to divert to Lajes, Azores (TER) after indication of a mechanical issue with an engine," read a Delta statement.

“The flight landed safely, and we sincerely apologize to our customers for their experience and delay in their travels.” The passengers are understood to have arrived on July 7 in New York

The Azores is a cluster of Portuguese islands in the Atlantic Ocean. The US government has an air force base there, in the town of Lajes, where Delta’s Sunday flight was diverted.

There is also a large British cemetery on the island which was established during the Second World War, when Commonwealth forces were stationed on the island and the aerodrome was used by the Commonwealth and American air forces. Nineteen of the graves are those of the passengers and crew of a Liberator which crashed into the hills when taking off on 14 March 1945.

In February this year a Delta Air Lines plane flipped on its roof while landing at Toronto’s Pearson Airport, but all 80 people onboard survived and those hurt had relatively minor injuries.

Snow blown by winds gusting to 40 mph (65 kph) swirled when the flight from Minneapolis carrying 76 passengers and four crew attempted to land at around 2.15pm on February 17. Communications between the tower and pilot were normal on approach and it’s not clear what went so drastically wrong when the plane touched down.