Delta Plane Makes Emergency Landing Due to Cracked Windshield

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I hope Delta has glass coverage included in insurance, or they have to pay out of pocket!!

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Cracked glass? An act of God/Allah. Insurance does not cover. Why do we pay premiums? Ah yes! Fear.

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a "SCARE" come on....no real emergency just precaution..rightfully so..."no air is leaving" oh my get real.....

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As an old time pilot, that would have been "crap your drawers " time. I'm sure the pilot followed emergency depressurization procedures depending on altitude. etc. I'm just glad no injuries were reported. Keep on keepin' on!!

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Had to be following one of those flying gravel trucks. Darn things always throwing rocks at and at the speed the drive, they have to be flying too.

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Airccraft are very large complex electro/mechanical devices filled with volitle fuels. There are literally millions of individual complex components in each aircraft. On a giiven flight several or many of these components will malfunction and the flight crew will manage the affected systems and not inform the passengers nor the cabin crew.
The windshield is mission essential. It is also a many hour repair. Landing the aircraft and changing to another is a safety consideration not the end of the earth. The crew did their job. Say "thank You," any time you reach your destination safely.

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if it's a Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) this is a basic design flaw. I worked for a Delta subsidiary for 14 years and we had cracked windshields from the beginning - it occurs where the glass meets the metal under the cockpit windshield. Design flaw. Nearly constant occurrence. for "phillip" it CAN be an emergency if the thing shatters and explosive decompression results. So to err in the name of caution is the RESPONSIBLE thing to do. for those who have never worked for a subsidiary, there's not enough space to explain it all. And to testify before Congress would do no good, either. Anyone flying is rolling the dice, anyway, so why bother?

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Nat and Gary, you two are morons. We should say "thank you" any time we reach our destination and we are "rolling the dice" when we fly??? Are you both serious? I hope you say thank you everything you reach your destination in your vehicle or just walking across the street for that matter. I do not know anyone who has ever been harmed in a commercial plane crash, yet I have many friends who have died in car crashes or other freak accidents. Stop trying to scare the public. You have a one in ten million (or more) chance of dying in a domestic commercial plane crash.

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I don't remember the numbers of windshield that I have changed during my 52 years of aicraft maintenance. The windshields are made of several layers of reinforced plastics and imbeded with kavelard. There is very little chance that a windshield will ever crack and let air from the cockpit scape to the out side. Also, the windshields are electrically heated to avoid icing and to "soften" it a bit to withstand bird strikes. There is no danger to the safety of an aircraft because of a crack on the windshield. None.

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I am a retired aircraft maintenance person. The windshield of a jet aircraft is about an inch or more thick and is made of several layers of glass glued together with a high strength clear epoxy cement and cured in a oven. Age, the stress of high altitude cold, pressure changes, and one layer expanding or contracting a little more or less than the other can and does cause an individual layer to crack. FAA rules do not allow flying with a crack, so when a crack developes he must land. But the odds of all the other layers of the windshield also failing are very, very small. Much less that the odds of your car windshild blowing in when they crack, and you keep driving.

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I HAVE HAD CRACKED WINDSHIELDS THRU MY 50 YEARS OF FLYING. THE STRUCTURAL INTEGRATY OF THE WINDSHIELD IS THE INSIDE OF THE WINDSHIELD.
THE BEST WAY TO DETERMINE IF IT IS IMPERATIVE TO LAND IS TO RUN YOUR FINGERNAIIL ACROSS THE CRACK AND IF YOU CAN FEEL THE CRACK THEN ASK THE ATC FOR A LOWER ALTITUDE AND PLAN AN IMMEDIATE LANDING. IF YOU CAN DETERMINE THAT THE STRCTURAL INTEGRATY IS NOT COMPROMISED THEN IT IS SAFE TO CONTINUE TO DESTINATION

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This happened to us coming back to LA from Acapulco on a LACSA flight. It was super scary because we had to turn around and go back to Acapulco to land, during a very bad storm with a lot of turbulence.

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one of our clients called and said there flight to ghana last night had to turn around after 6 hours of flying time because the plane lost its navigation. why wasn't that in the news....DELTA

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