Passengers were forced to hold up a portion of a plane’s ceiling after it collapsed during a flight from Atlanta to Chicago.
Delta Flight 2417 passengers were given an unfortunate task on April 14 when they were forced to hold up ceiling panels of the aircraft for what was described as 30 to 45 minutes.
Tom Witschy, a 35-year-old from Chicago, told People that during takeoff he and another passenger heard a sound they assumed was a “bag banging against the overhead bin.”
However, shortly after takeoff, the sound became a loud banging noise before a “panel of the plane came off, crashing down, nearly hitting an older woman” who was seated in the row ahead of him. Witschy said the panel was hanging by a thread, so he grabbed the corner closest to him to prevent it from hitting his row of passengers as the plan was ascending.
“The men across from me and diagonally across did the same,” the man told the outlet. The flight crew was unable to assist at the time due to the period of forced seating during the ascent.
‘We kept holding it as they alerted the pilots and searched their inventory for tape.’
After 10 to 15 minutes, flight attendants eventually came to investigate, which led to passengers having to hold up the falling panel until a solution was found.
“We kept holding it as they alerted the pilots and searched their inventory for tape. This went on for another 30 minutes or so.”
Images from the incident showed the extent of the damage, while a TikTok video from inside the plane emerged and showed several rows of passengers with their arms extended above their heads to hold the panel up.
The passenger claimed a missing screw or bolt was the likely reason for the dangling panel, and the eventual solution was provided by the passengers themselves.
“One of the flight attendants scoured the plane until a man ahead of us offered bright yellow scotch tape he happened to have, and that’s what she and several other people used to tape it up.”
A picture of the tape job with the caption “#reassuring” was provided by People.
Delta said in a statement that the company wanted to thank its customers for their “patience and cooperation.”
“We apologize for the delay in their travels,” Delta added.
The airline said the aircraft returned to Atlanta “due to cabin maintenance,” and the flight continued after “about a two-hour delay on another aircraft.”
Days earlier, Flight 1278 from Santa Ana, California, to Atlanta reportedly suffered a similar fate when a ceiling panel fell and allegedly hit a passenger.
“Delta has been in touch with our customer to express our apologies for this rare occurrence,” the airline said at the time.
A few days prior to that incident, a different string of bad luck hit Delta passengers in Atlanta when nearly 300 people spent the night on the tarmac. As reported by Fox 5 Atlanta, passengers on two international Delta flights were diverted due to bad weather, with passengers spending the entire night on the planes.
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