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A Delta flight was delayed for four hours after a veteran flight attendant accidentally deployed the plane's emergency slide. The crew member - who has 26 years of experience - accidentally raised the door handle when Flight 3248 landed in Pittsburgh after traveling from Salt Lake City on Saturday afternoon. The plane's emergency system was armed and the mistake triggered the slide, AviationA2z reported. 'Everyone’s entire night just became a cluster f***,' a passenger posted on Reddit. Photos shared on social media by the passenger showed the emergency slide after it was deployed. If a plane door is forced open while the emergency system is active then the slide is deployed within seconds - giving staff no chance of stopping it. A Delta spokesperson confirmed the mishap in a statement to the Daily Mail, saying 'while the aircraft door was being opened, crew inadvertently deployed an emergency slide at the gate in Pittsburgh.' Delta said passengers who were booked to travel on the plane on the return flight to Salt Lake City from Pittsburgh were rebooked onto other flights either that night or the following morning. 'Hotel accommodations were provided for any impacted customers rebooked to depart on October 26,' the spokesperson said. The return flight to Salt Lake City eventually took off at 9.11pm - almost four hours late. The mishap could cost the company a pretty penny. Emergency evacuation slides are expensive and replacements for smaller jets cost between $50,000 and $70,000 according to AviationA2z. The total cost to the fiasco including hotels, crew, and reposition, can skyrocket up to a six-figure expense. 'He [The flight attendant] did apologize and was quite flustered, cited over the 26 years of career, it never happened ,' the passenger wrote on Reddit. 'My personal take on this. There is nothing against Delta, especially about the person who made mistake. Things happen, this one is just more stimulating,' they wrote. An expert told the Post that the slide's quick deployment time is a feature, not a flaw. 'In an emergency, you want ‘open door = slide goes’ with zero extra steps. Adding friction increases evacuation risk,' the expert said. 'That’s a design tradeoff that’s intentionally made to increase likelihood of quick exit in an emergency.' They explained opening the plane's door from the outside will 'auto-disarm' but 'opening from inside while armed deploys the slide.
