Delta 757 suffers cabin depressurization

On Monday, a Delta Airlines Boeing 757-200 performing flight 339 from Atlanta to Seattle suffered a cabin depressurization over Kansas, the aircraft diverted to Denver and landed safely.

Boeing 757-200 N686DA, incident aircraft.

The aircraft, a 22-year-old Boeing 757-200 registered as N686DA was en route from Atlanta to Seattle when it suffered a cabin depressurization after reaching cruising altitude. The pilots quickly initiated an emergency descent down to 10,000ft where pressurization is no longer required and diverted to Denver, the aircraft landed safely and taxied to the gate as normal.

The aircraft was carrying 185 passengers and seven crew members, it was reported that only two or three of the passengers were being treated for light symptoms of “light headedness and shortness of breath”.

In a statement Delta spokesperson Morgan Durrant said:

"Safety is always top of mind for Delta people as we serve our customers. We apologize to our customers for the delay in their travels this evening and our teams are working to get them to their final destinations as quickly as possible."

While a cabin depressurization is certainly a dangerous event, it is not normally considered a fatal one. 40-50 decompression events occur annually worldwide and most manage to land safely, though there are some exceptions to this such as Helios 522 or 1999 South Dakota Learjet crash carrying PGA golfer Payne Stewart in both cases the depressurization went unnoticed and the aircraft were not able to descend due to everyone onboard suffering hypoxia.