It took a while for all of the details to come to light, but Delta Airlines experienced another in-flight mechanical failure on Friday. The problem showed up shortly after Flight 520 took off from JFK Airport in New York. The issue was initially reported as one where the passengers and crew heard "a loud noise" coming from the vicinity of the plane's right wing and detected a "vibration." It turned out to be more than that. The plane's emergency exit slide had deployed and fallen off. A search was underway to locate the missing parts. Also, you may have already guessed that this was another Boeing plane, though it was a 767-300 model rather than the troubled 737-MAX class that has been in the news of late. (NPR)

A Delta Air Lines flight that departed from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City was forced to make an emergency return to the airport Friday morning after an emergency slide came apart from the Boeing 767, the airline said. A search for the slide was ongoing.

"After the aircraft had safely landed and proceeded to a gate, it was observed that the emergency slide had separated from the aircraft," a Delta spokesperson said in a statement to NPR Friday afternoon.

In a statement, the Federal Aviation Administration said Delta Flight 520 "returned safely to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York around 8:35 a.m. local time on Friday, April 26, after the crew reported a vibration. The FAA will investigate."

Perhaps it's just me, but having one of the jet's emergency slides pop out and fall off in midflight seems like a rather big deal. That's particularly true if it happens to come down on your head. The flight crew declared an emergency and circled around before returning to JFK. The plane landed without incident and was able to proceed to the gate under its own power. It was pointed out that this was a rather old plane that Delta has been flying since 1990. It was due to be decommissioned in 2028, but that date may be moved up depending on the outcome of the inspection and investigation.

The failure was clearly alarming to the people on the plane. One passenger said that she had been "alarmed" and "really scared" when she heard what sounded like grinding noises coming from the wing of the plane. I suppose we can't really blame her for that reaction. I would imagine that a lot of the flying public is a lot more nervous than usual after hearing about all of these midair failures and being warned about flying on Boeing jets. 

My own attitude on this matter has shifted considerably as I've been researching this topic over the past six months or so. Originally, I'd simply assumed that the odd mechanical failure here and there is inevitable when you consider how many flights there are every day. I was also given reason for optimism while considering the lack of fatal crashes in the United States over a prolonged period of time. 

Now I'm not so sure, however. All of the witnesses and whistleblowers coming out of Boeing have been painting a consistent picture of a company where production speed is prioritized far ahead of safety and required inspections of repair work are spotty at best. The nature of some of the failures we've observed, particularly when it's found that essential hardware was simply missing, creates even more concerns. It may still be excessive to refer to Boeing's planes as "flying junkyards," but I'm left with a growing dread that our streak of having no plane crashes is going to come to an end sooner or later.