Emergency slide that fell from Delta flight is recovered from Queens jetty

An emergency slide that fell from a Delta Air Lines flight just minutes after takeoff on Friday was recovered on Sunday along a jetty in a Queens neighborhood about six miles from Kennedy International Airport, officials said. The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation said that Delta Air Lines had recovered “a large piece of debris” from the jetty near Beach 131st Street in Belle Harbor, southwest of the airport. Delta Air Lines said in a statement on Tuesday that it had retrieved the slide from the jetty. It was unclear whether the slide had landed on the jetty, a small rock pier built to break apart waves, or it had washed up there. The plane had just taken off from New York on Friday morning on a flight to Los Angeles when the crew saw a flight deck indication about a problem involving the emergency-exit slide on the right wing, according the airline. The crew also noticed a “non-routine” sound from that wing, the airline said. The FAA, which is investigating the episode, said in a statement that the flight, which was carrying 176 passengers as well as two pilots and five flight attendants, safely returned to J.F.K. around 8:35 a.m. on Friday “after the crew reported a vibration.” Delta said that the crew had declared an emergency with air traffic control. The plane was a Boeing 767-300ER, an older model that has been in service since the 1990s. After the plane arrived at a gate, crews saw that the emergency slide was missing from the aircraft, according to the airline. Passengers on the flight continued to Los Angeles on a different plane. “As nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and people, Delta flight crews enacted their extensive training and followed procedures to return to J.F.K.,” the airline said in a statement on Friday. “We appreciate their professionalism and our customers’ patience for the delay in their travels.”<br/>