A Delta Air Lines plane diverted after an oven caught fire on board, forcing some passengers to wait two days before continuing their journey.
Flight 55 took off from Lagos, Nigeria, shortly after noon last Tuesday, headed for Atlanta.
However, less than 40 minutes after takeoff, the Airbus A330 U-turned while over Ghana.
It descended and landed in Ghana’s capital, Accra, just over an hour after first lifting off.
A Delta spokesperson told Business Insider that the flight diverted “following indication of a small-scale fire that was contained to one of the aircraft’s galley ovens.”
They added that it was caused by food debris on the heating element.
Michael Achimugu, the director of public affairs at Nigeria’s Civil Aviation Authority, said in an X post that the plane couldn’t take off again because the crew had reached their maximum working hours.
Meanwhile, he added, some passengers were rebooked on different flights to try to reach Atlanta as soon as possible.
Some of them were able to fly to New York the same evening, and others the following day.
But it wasn’t until Thursday that the A330 departed Accra, landing in Atlanta around 7 p.m.
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That was almost precisely 48 hours after the flight was originally scheduled to land at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
There were 118 passengers on board, compared to 188 on the one that diverted.
“As nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and crew, the flight crew followed procedures and safely diverted to the nearest international airport,” Delta said.
“We apologize to our customers for the delay in their travel plans and we thank them for their patience.”
A similar incident took place on a KLM flight in 2023. Passengers were left shaken and in tears after smoke came from one of the ovens during the journey from Amsterdam to South Africa.
Cabin crew again managed to extinguish the fire, and the plane turned around and flew back to Amsterdam.
Returning to a flight’s origin airport can make it easier for the airline to find a replacement crew and reroute passengers. But other times, urgency can force them to the nearest airport.
