A Delta Air Lines flight arriving in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 25 was delayed from returning to Salt Lake City, Utah, after a flight attendant inadvertently deployed the aircraft’s emergency slide while opening the door at the gate.
The incident occurred on Delta Flight 3248 aboard an Airbus A220-300 plane servicing the route from Salt Lake City to Pittsburgh. A Delta spokesperson told Newsweek that “while the aircraft door was being opened, crew inadvertently deployed an emergency slide at the arrival gate in PIT [Pittsburgh International Airport].”
A photograph of the deployed slide surfaced on social media, posted on Reddit by u/SF-Coyote. The post was titled “Flight attendant said he was terribly sorry, no going home tonight.” The post has garnered 19,000 upvotes since it appeared on the site on the evening of October 25.
According to the Reddit post, the flight attendant “accidentally triggered the emergency slide” and was visibly shaken. “He did apologize and was quite flustered,” the poster wrote, adding that the crew member mentioned this had never happened in his 26-year career. “Can someone explain how though?” the user asked. “Shouldn’t it be something with quite a safety check for making this kind of mistake?”
Due to the incident, Delta was forced to cancel the return segment of the flight from Pittsburgh to Salt Lake City. “As a result, customers on the return flight from PIT to SLC [Salt Lake City International] were rebooked on other Delta flights to their destination later that evening or the following morning,” the airline said. “Hotel accommodations were provided for any impacted customers rebooked to depart on October 26.”
The Delta spokesperson said: “We apologize to our customers for the delay in their travel plans.”
The timing of the recent incident comes amid concerns about the state of U.S. air travel and its role in the national tourism economy. A report earlier this month by the U.S. Travel Association projected a notable decline in international visitation to the United States, warning that the number of inbound visitors could drop from 72.4 million in 2024 to 67.9 million in 2025.
The report cited decreasing travel from Canada as a primary driver of the fall and suggested the trend could threaten billions of dollars in spending and thousands of jobs.
“The latest forecast signals both opportunity and warning for America’s travel economy,” the association said in a statement. “While domestic travel is holding steady, the continued decline in international visitors threatens billions in spending and thousands of jobs.”
Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment via the Reddit messaging system.
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