A flight preparing to leave Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport for Peoria, Illinois, never made it off the ground Saturday after smoke was reported in the cockpit, forcing the plane to abort takeoff while taxiing. Passengers and crew were evacuated from American Eagle Flight 5230 and bused back to the terminal, with American Airlines confirming nobody was hurt.
The aircraft, operated by PSA Airlines, experienced a mechanical issue while taxiing before takeoff, according to CBS News. American Airlines said 64 passengers and four crew members were on board, and no injuries were reported. The airline's account of events was echoed by NBC News, which reported that all passengers and crew safely deplaned, bused to the terminal, and eventually took off on a different plane.
Plane Pulled From Service for Inspection
Once everyone was off, American Airlines pulled the original aircraft out of service so its maintenance team could inspect it, the station's report notes. Flight 5230 had been scheduled to travel from Dallas-Fort Worth straight through to Peoria, but passengers ultimately departed on a replacement aircraft instead.
Exactly what triggered the smoke in the cockpit, or who first reported it, has not been detailed publicly. The same is true of the specific mechanical problem behind the aborted takeoff — details that remain unclear per the available reporting.
A Rough Weekend for Air Travel Nationwide
The DFW incident landed in the middle of an already messy stretch for U.S. air travel. DFW was still working through delays stemming from a rare nationwide ground stop the Federal Aviation Administration ordered on Friday, according to the same CBS News account. That ground stop, the FAA's third of this century and its second-longest ever behind the halt following the September 11, 2001 attacks, was detailed by The New York Times.
The FAA lifted the ground stop at 8:15 p.m. Eastern after halting departures for more than four hours, NBC News reported. But the disruption rippled through the weekend: at least 3,000 flights scheduled for Saturday were canceled as airlines and airports worked to recover, the Times reported, citing aviation data firm Cirium. By 5:45 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, more than 5,600 scheduled U.S. departures — over a quarter of the day's total — had been scrubbed, according to the same Cirium data cited by the Times.
FAA Expects Normal Schedules by Sunday Night
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the U.S. air travel schedule should be back to normal by the end of Sunday, offering some reassurance to travelers still untangling delayed and canceled trips. For the passengers who found themselves evacuating a taxiing jet at DFW, though, the smoke scare was its own separate scramble layered on top of an already chaotic travel weekend — one that, according to American Airlines, ended with everyone accounted for and unharmed.
