A flight attendant accidentally popped the slide on Delta flight 3248 from Pittsburgh to Salt Lake City on Saturday. You can see the Airbus A220 at Pittsburgh’s gate D2, and the flight wound up delayed four hours, from 5:30 p.m. to 9:11 p.m.
The 1L boarding door was opened while armed, so the slide auto‑deployed onto the ramp. Staff re-connected the jetbridge and passengers were offloaded. It then took “about an hour” to disconnect and remove the slide. Meanwhile, a flight attendant apologized saying that in her “26‑year career, never happened.”
Numerous passengers then misconnected in Salt Lake City and got stuck spending the night there, although some would have wound up getting re-booked especially through Atlanta.
Flight attendant said he was terribly sorry, no going home tonight
byu/SF-Coyote indelta
After the “arm doors for departure” call a flight attendant would have opened the 1L door from the inside, e.g. to ‘re-secure’ or check the door, with the arming level still in ARMED or not fully up. That causes the slide to auto-deploy onto the tarmac.
In an emergency, you want “open door = slide goes” with zero extra steps. Adding friction increases evacuation risk. That’s a design tradeoff that’s intentionally made to increase likelihood of quick exit in an emergency. Opening the door from the outside auto‑disarms, but opening from inside while armed deploys the slide. So an inadvertent deployment at the gate usually means someone opened 1L from the inside while armed.
Repacking and repairing can cost $20,000 while the total event cost to the operation, including hotels, crew, and repositioning, can be a six figure expense.
Saw this on Reddit and knew it’d be here soon enough!
@Tim Dunn — We know this happens on other airlines, but, it also happens on Delta! Keep Climbing (and Sliding!)
Oopsie. We all make mistakes, but this is a really expensive one.
Maybe Delta will now pay her in SkyMiles (which is a 99% pay cut)….
@Captain Freedom — “Here’s 3,000 SkyPesos for poisoning you…” I mean, for your labor. Yeesh. (Poor J.A.R.; don’t worry, we’re still with you, bud!)
I feel sorry for the flight attendant.
@jns — Before or after this incident? I agree; Delta’s FAs should join the airlines’ pilots in organizing…
The A220 doors are easily to note being armed by the markings on the door or on the CMS panel adjacent to 1L. All four doors operate the exact same way. If the jet was disconnected from the JetWay, the doors would have been armed. So, why would the flight attendant grab that huge handle and move it to the OPEN position? That’s what doesn’t make sense.
@ 1990. Snore zzz
…if my FA does this, can I at least use the slide?
win,
I believe that she never had anything like this happen in her 26 years of flying – but you can easily lose your situational awareness when you most need it.
There have been far more passengers inconvenienced at DFW today because of ATC issues than a decade’s worth of DL slide deployments.