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 rapidly descended, according to KSL.
‘I looked over at my husband, and he had both of his hands over his ears, you know, kind of leaning forward,’ flier Caryn Allen told the outlet.
Allyn added that she ‘looked about a row behind me, over on the other side of the aisle, and there was a gentleman that clearly had a very bad bloody nose, and people were trying to help him.’
Another fellow passenger Jaci Purser told KSL it felt like her ear was being stabbed from all of the pressure in the cabin, revealing that she ‘grabbed my ear, and I pulled my hand back, and there was blood on it’.
Delta passengers were left injured after a Sunday flight experienced pressure issues
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 aircraft had to return to Salt Lake City because of pressurization issues. The plane landed at 8:30am on Sunday and paramedics were waiting to treat those who were hurt.
Ten people needed medical treatment or evaluation from the paramedics when they got off the flight.
Purcer added that once the flight landed, she was diagnosed with a ruptured eardrum. Paramedics gave her antibiotics, nasal spray steroids and decongestants.
In a statement, Delta Air Lines said the aircraft was put back into 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 teams on the ground supported our customers with their immediate needs.’
Jaci Purser and another passenger held their ears in pain when the incident occurred
Retired Delta pilot Valerie Walker told KSL: ‘It’s an automatic thing the airplane does, and we monitor it to see if it’s not doing what it should be doing,
‘I suspect they saw the cabin pressurization problem and heard it, asked air traffic control to go out 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 that she has had similar experiences before, but never as severe as on Sunday.
The Federal Aviation Administration is planning to investigate the incident, according to WPTV.
The cause of this issue was not announced.