JetBlue flight makes emergency landing after smoke alert in cargo hold

A JetBlue flight made an emergency landing in Kansas on Saturday after pilots were alerted to smoke in the cargo hold, but an inspection revealed it was a false alarm, the airline said.

The plane descended safely and landed “without incident,” the airline said in a statement.

Flight 1189 was traveling from New York to San Diego when the pilot announced that an alert was received for fire or smoke in the cargo hold area, according to passenger Seth Odell. The Salina Airport Authority said there were about 130 people on board.

“The pilot came on [the intercom] and let us know that he was seeing an alert for smoke in the cargo bay,” Odell said. “Some passengers did report hearing a loud bang, too, and so we descended incredibly rapidly and landed in the extremely small airport in Salina.”

Odell shared that there were only about 10 minutes between the pilot’s announcement and the subsequent landing in Kansas.

“So obviously everybody was starting to freak out,” Odell said. “Some people were crying. It was a little bit intense for a few minutes. Crew did a great job getting everybody organized extremely quickly, and obviously once we were on the ground, everyone was just elated.”

The Salina Fire Department responded to the airport at around 6:20 p.m. CT and the plane landed around 10 minutes later, according to Salina Fire Battalion Chief Derrick Herzog. The department helped offload all 130 people, who included passengers and staff. No injuries were reported.

Herzog said there were no major issues with the plane, but indicator lights had come on in the cockpit. The issue appears to be an electrical one, but the fire department is still waiting for engineers to investigate, he added.

The National Transportation Safety Board did not respond to a request for comment. The Federal Aviation Administration said it will investigate the incident.

Odell said the plane’s pilot told passengers that there was no indication of an actual fire once they had landed.

“It sounds like they said some fire suppressant was used in the cargo area, but they’re not sure if there was a fire,” he said.