Yesterday, December 18, 2024, Delta Flight 987 from Atlanta to Boston was diverted back to Atlanta after the cabin experienced cabin depressurization 25 minutes after takeoff according to passenger Wasim Dapoo.
Shown below is a screenshot from FlightAware. The flight left Atlanta at 7:04 AM EST and returned at 8:40 AM EST.
Another passenger on the plane, Frank Bafaro, had this to say about the flight on a social media post:
”I was on this flight and it was very calm and very controlled. Masks dropped. Passengers were told to put on masks. Pilot began a very normal yet quick and controlled left turn descent and brought the flight down to 9700. Once level he made an announcement about the situation sharing the plane was in good shape and control and we’d be landing in ATL shortly. Even shared that operations was working on rebooking. Asked passengers to keep masks on and then after we dropped to ~6k the FA came in and said if folks are comfortable the captain said it was safe to take off masks.
Landing was smooth and I watched on flightradar24 that our flight had lots of spacing so to avoid a go around (heavy fog in ATL this AM). I guess the scariest thing for me was that I turned on my LiveATC app and listened to the approach where the controller asked for the number of souls onboard and remaining fuel. Captain said 142 and 2 hours (my guess is he didn’t count the service dog I saw in First Class!)
By the way, during the safety video they say that “the bag may not inflate”… haha…they don’t inflate even though oxygen was flowing!”
We have reached out to Delta Airlines for a statement but at the time of this writing, we haven’t heard back. This story will be updated once we hear back.
All the recent drone activity has us checking flight data more often to see if we discover anything unusual.
Kudos to the pilot and other crew members onboard Delta Flight 987 for a job well done.
Audio of the flight can be heard here: LiveATC.net Search the archives using UTC time.