Delta Airlines passengers were left with burst eardrums and bleeding noses after their flight suddenly lost pressure.
Passengers aboard a flight from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Portland, Oregon, felt the cabin lose pressure before the plane descended rapidly, according to KSL.
“I looked over at my husband, and he had his hands over his ears, you know, kind of leaning forward,” driver Caryn Allen told the outlet.
Allyn added that she “looked one row behind me, across the aisle, and there was a gentleman who clearly had a very bad nose bleed, and people were trying to help him.
Another fellow passenger, Jaci Purser, told KSL that she felt like her ear was being stabbed by all the pressure in the cabin, revealing that “he grabbed my ear, and I pulled my hand out, and there was blood on it.”
Delta passengers were injured after a flight on Sunday experienced pressure problems
The Boeing 737-900 flying from Utah to Portland had to return to Salt Lake City when the pressure dropped.
Delta Airlines wrote in a statement that the Boeing 737-900 plane had to return to Salt Lake City due to pressurization problems. The plane landed at 8:30 am on Sunday and paramedics were waiting to treat those who were injured.
Ten people required medical treatment or evaluation by paramedics when they disembarked from the flight.
Purcer added that once the flight landed, she was diagnosed with a ruptured eardrum. Paramedics gave him antibiotics, steroid nasal spray and decongestants.
In a statement, Delta Air Lines said the aircraft was returned to service on Monday.
The airline said: “We sincerely apologize to our customers for their experience on flight 1203 on September 15. The flight crew followed procedures to return to SLC where our ground teams supported our customers with their immediate needs.”
Jaci Purser and another passenger were holding their ears in pain when the incident happened
Retired Delta pilot Valerie Walker told KSL, “It’s an automatic thing that the plane does, and we monitor it to see if it’s not doing what it’s supposed to do,
“They suspect they saw the cabin pressurization problem and they heard it, they asked air traffic control to go over the Great Salt Lake because it was visual, where they had time and they had safe clearance to go through our emergency procedures and try to find out what was wrong.
Walker told the outlet he’s had similar experiences before, but never as severe as Sunday’s.
The Federal Aviation Administration plans to investigate the incident, he said WPTV.
The cause of this problem has not been announced.