Sean Morgan had just spent a month aboard a sailing yacht in the British Virgin Islands, enjoying temperatures in the high 80s and taking in the soft ocean breeze. Flying back to Iowa on Saturday, Nov. 29, he said he was planning to get his Clear Lake home ready for winter and be there when his first grandson is born.
Then came the harsh welcome back.
His plane, Delta Air Lines Flight 5087 from Detroit, skidded off the runway at Des Moines International Airport, shutting down the airport during one of the busiest travel weekends of the year while a post-Thanksgiving storm dropped nearly a foot of snow on the runway.
“The only thing I can really equate it to is when you’re in a car and you’re coming up on a stop sign and the roads are slick and your (Anti-lock Braking System) kicks in. Bouncy, choppy feeling,” Morgan said. “It was kind of like that, but in a plane.”
In a statement to the Des Moines Register, the Federal Aviation Administration said the Delta connection flight operated by Endeavor Air “slid off the end of a runway while turning onto a taxiway” around 9:30 p.m. No one was injured. The agency said it is investigating the incident. The National Transportation Safety Board “has collected information” on the incident but had not opened its own investigation, according to a statement from spokesperson Sarah Taylor Sulick.
Delta Airlines said in a statement the CRJ-900 aircraft had two pilots, two flight attendants and 54 passengers on board.
“Delta will cooperate with any ensuing investigation if there is one, and we will learn from this situation as we always do in the spirit of continuous improvement and our safety management system,” a Delta spokesperson said.
The airport was closed until late Sunday morning. Images taken after sunrise showed the nose of the jet buried in a snowbank, but no visible structural damage.
The storm that moved through Iowa late Friday and throughout Saturday dropped 10.9 inches of snow at the Des Moines airport, part of a wider system that brought 7 to 16 inches across the state and created low visibility and slick conditions as travelers returned from the Thanksgiving holiday.
Airport CEO Brian Mulcahy said in an interview Monday that crews had been maintaining the runway throughout the storm and that friction tests before the landing showed a runway condition code of 3-3-3, meaning there were “contaminants” on the surface but still enough braking action for aircraft to land safely. He said the jet touched down and slowed as expected and it left the runway later while taxiing.
Mulcahy said drifting snow made the usual mid-runway turnoff unusable, so the aircraft had to taxi all the way to the end of the runway, where the incident occurred. He said the FAA has asked the airport for its records, but he declined to speculate on what besides weather played a role.
Morgan, who owns a sailing yacht charter company in the British Virgin Islands, said the flight into Des Moines was turbulent, with scattered bumps throughout the night and suspended in-flight service. He said the landing itself felt routine until the aircraft began to taxi.
“There got a point where you’re expecting the plane to turn in and get onto the taxiway and head towards the terminal like normal, and it did not. It just kind of kept sliding,” he said.
In the second row, Morgan said he could feel the shift. Farther back on the left side of the aircraft, Brian Travers of Des Moines, who was returning home from family Thanksgiving in Washington, D.C., said he noticed snow under the wing lights as the jet left the pavement.
“I knew right away, we were off the runway and had just hit the snow,” said Travers, an avid storm chaser. “The plane was already decelerated well enough that most people on the plane, at least around me, did not even realize.”
Both passengers described a calm cabin. Travers said there was no jolt or abrupt movement, and Morgan recalled no panic as the aircraft came to a stop in the snow.
The crew did not make an announcement until nearly 10 minutes after the incident, both passengers said, a delay Morgan said he found frustrating as everyone waited in a dark cabin for information.
“It was basically radio silence,” Morgan said. “We sat there, kind of looking out the windows as we watched the fire trucks and everybody come shooting at us, and finally the pilot comes on the speaker.”
When the pilot did address the cabin, Morgan said the update offered little clarity.
The two passengers said they remained on board for roughly an hour to an hour and a half as firefighters arrived and airport crews coordinated bus transport back to the terminal.
Morgan, still in shorts and a T-shirt, said fire crews helped passengers down the plane’s metal stairs, which had become slick as snow continued to blow across the runway.
Mulcahy said the airport is reviewing whether passengers could have been deplaned sooner. He said crews waited to open the aircraft door until enough buses were available to take everyone at once, because the cabin would have become cold once the door was cracked.
FlightAware data shows at least two inbound flights diverted Saturday night, including a flight from Houston that landed in Kansas City and a flight from Denver that landed in Omaha.
By Sunday morning, passengers began receiving follow-up communication from Delta. Travers said the airline refunded the last leg of his trip and emailed him an apology by 9 a.m. Morgan, who had checked bags, said his luggage was delivered to his home more than two hours north of Des Moines around 11 p.m. Sunday.
He said Delta initially offered him a $400 voucher but he asked for more. He said the airline ultimately refunded his Detroit to Des Moines leg, gave him $900 in flight vouchers, covered his hotel and meals for the night and is working on providing him lounge access for the next year.
Ultimately, both men said they were grateful the outcome wasn’t worse. Travers said everyone around him “handled it very well.”
Morgan said he felt the same, even if he was disappointed the moment didn’t come with an experience some passengers on the plane hoped for.
“We asked the (flight attendant) whether this would be a good excuse to use the big inflatable emergency slide,” he said. “She shot my puppy on that one. She said, ‘No, we can’t do that.’”
Nick El Hajj is a reporter at the Register. He can be reached at nelhajj@gannett.com. Follow him on X at @nick_el_hajj.
This story was updated to add new information and to correct an inaccuracy.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Passengers describe plane skidding off Des Moines runway as ‘choppy’
Reporting by Nick El Hajj, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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