Delta Air Lines oxygen masks deployed on flight 2311 after the Boeing 737-900ER made a rapid descent on Sunday. The flight left Los Angeles International Airport bound for Salt Lake City Airport and neared Harry Reid International in Las Vegas before the crew brought it down to a safe altitude.
Delta said the crew followed training and procedures after an unexpected pressurization issue. The airline said the jet was back in service within hours and continued on to SLC the same night.
Delta flight 2311 over Las Vegas
According to Flightradar24, DL2311 departed from LAX at 5:06 PM and reached SLC at 12:24 AM. The timing shows the flight kept moving after the emergency descent rather than ending the trip on the ground in Las Vegas.
A Reddit user claiming to be one of the passengers described the event this way: "The pressurization system failed, my ears immediately started hurting, the oxygen masks dropped, and we did a rapid descent into Las Vegas. The scariest part wasn’t even the descent: it was not knowing what was going on. Flight attendants were trying to make announcements with their masks on and it was almost impossible to hear them."
That account adds the cabin-level detail passengers experienced while the aircraft was descending. It also shows why the crew’s announcements were hard to hear once the masks dropped and the descent began.
Delta Air Lines statement
Delta said, "As safety comes before everything else at Delta, the flight crew of Delta flight 2311 LAX-SLC followed their training and procedures to safely bring the aircraft to optimal altitude when an unexpected pressurization issue occurred. Delta sincerely apologizes to our customers for their experience and thanks our flight crews and other support teams on the ground for their professionalism."
The airline’s wording points to a cabin pressure event rather than a landing problem. In this kind of situation, the immediate priority is getting the aircraft down to an altitude where the cabin can be made safe without relying on the masks.
Delta flight 760 in January
Delta flight 760 in January involved a slow pressure leak and a diversion because of depressurization. The Airbus A319 on that flight used backup systems to repressurize before diverting to New York JFK as a precaution.
The Sunday flight differed in speed and sequence: the oxygen masks deployed, the jet descended rapidly, and the aircraft later returned to service. Delta has not publicly revealed what caused the pressurization issue on Delta flight 2311, so the exact failure that triggered the descent is still the open question.
