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Valley flight makes emergency landing
PITTSBURGH
Passengers on an Allegiant Airline flight from Youngstown to Florida were to continue their journey early this morning after making an emergency landing at Pittsburgh International Airport.
Allegiant Air Flight 607, carrying 141 passengers and five crew members, took off from Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport at 6:50 p.m. Thursday and landed safely in Pittsburgh about 7:30 p.m., said Jordan McGee, airline spokeswoman.
McGee said the pilot saw a high oil-temperature indicator activate, and then shut down one of the plane’s two engines.
“The standard procedure when you get an indictor is to shut the engine down, and the next step is to declare an emergency, and the flight was diverted,” she said.
Maintenance workers confirmed there was an oil leak and that plane will stay grounded, McGee said.
Meanwhile, late last night, another plane was en route to Pittsburgh and was expected to take off around 3:30 a.m. Friday to resume the trip to Orlando. Passengers were given meal vouchers and $25 in credit to use for future Allegiant flights, and those passengers who decided to travel back to Youngstown will be able to re-book the flight for a different day, McGee said.
Dan Dickten, director of aviation at Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, said he was unaware of the flight’s trouble when reached by The Vindicator late Thursday.
“The first two flights today went fine,” he said, adding that he was not present for the third flight.
McGee stressed that Allegiant takes safety seriously.
“Safety is our first priority. We don’t take off unless we expect to have a safe take-off. This was an anomaly,” she said.
In early March this year, passengers on an Allegiant Air flight from Youngstown-Warren to St. Petersburg had to be diverted to a Toledo flight, and an Orlando flight was canceled, after the airport’s Instrument Landing System, needed for aircraft to get into the airport broke down.