Delta passenger's "scariest flight ever"

Delta flight diverted after smoke fills cabin

There was an emergency in the air late Thursday as smoke billowed into the cabin of a Delta jet flying from Fort Lauderdale to New York.

CBS News transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave reports smoke filled the cabin of Delta Flight 2028 more than an hour after taking off, according to the FAA.

The MD-88 jet's crew reported smoke in the cockpit and a problem with one of the jet's two engines.

"60 Minutes" producer Katherine Davis was on the plane and shot video of the smoke in the cabin. She said the captain announced he had shut down one of the engines.

Smoke fills the cabin of Delta Flight 2028 from Fort Lauderdale to New York, May 7, 2015, before the MD-88 jet was forced to make an emergency landing in Charleston, South Carolina. CBS/Katherine Davis

"We could hear the beeping of the smoke alarm and it was pretty quickly --the cabin was filling up with smoke pretty quickly -- so yeah, it was a little nerve wracking," Davis said. "They told all of us to put our heads down in our laps because the air would be fresher."

Another of the 89 passengers on board tweeted a picture of the smokey cabin, calling the experience, the "scariest flight ever."

The pilots landed safely in Charleston, South Carolina, about 700 miles short of its intended destination.

Delta bought pizza for the waylaid travels in Charleston, and eventually got them onto a replacement aircraft and to their destination, New York's La Guardia Airport, about four hours late.

As Van Cleave said, the MD-80 family of airplanes are the aging workhorses of the Delta fleet.

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