{"id":188134,"date":"2025-08-30T23:33:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T23:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/188134\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T23:33:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T23:33:15","slug":"delta-agrees-to-pay-79m-after-plane-dumped-fuel-on-cudahy-schools-nbc-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/188134\/","title":{"rendered":"Delta agrees to pay $79M after plane dumped fuel on Cudahy schools \u2013 NBC Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Delta Air Lines has agreed to pay $79 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 after\u00a0one of its airplanes<\/a>\u00a0that was experiencing engine trouble dumped its fuel over schoolyards and densely populated neighborhoods near Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

The Delta jet had departed from Los Angeles to Shanghai on Jan. 14, 2020 when it needed to quickly return to Los Angeles International Airport. The Boeing 777-200 landed safely after circling back over Los Angeles while dumping 15,000 gallons of fuel to reach a safe landing weight.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles County firefighters were called to\u00a0schools in the city of Cudahy<\/a>\u00a0where nearly 60 schoolchildren and teachers were examined for minor skin and lung irritations. None required hospitalization.<\/p>\n

Shortly after, teachers from Park Avenue Elementary School in Cudahy filed a\u00a0lawsuit against the airline<\/a>, saying they were exposed to jet fuel that drizzled down like raindrops with \u201coverwhelming\u201d fumes. They described feeling the fuel on their clothes, skin and eyes. Later, several Cudahy homeowners filed a class-action suit.<\/p>\n

The teachers said they sought medical treatment after the incident and experienced physical and emotional pain.<\/p>\n

Delta said in the lawsuit settlement reached Monday that one of the plane’s two engines lost thrust shortly after takeoff and that the plane, which was carrying enough fuel for the 13-hour flight, exceeded its maximum landing weight by around 160,000 pounds.<\/p>\n

The weight of a full load of fuel carries a risk of damaging a jetliner during landing \u2014 which can be expensive for an airline to fix. Even if there isn\u2019t damage, airlines try to avoid overweight landings because they are required to inspect planes, which puts them out of service.<\/p>\n

The pilots decided to dump fuel \u201cto reduce the serious risks of flying and landing an overweight airplane on just one engine.\u201d the airline said in court documents.<\/p>\n

Delta said in court documents that it agreed to the settlement without any admission of liability to avoid the legal expenses of a trial and \u201cto eliminate the distraction and other burdens this litigation has caused to Delta\u2019s business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Delta did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Delta Air Lines has agreed to pay $79 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 after\u00a0one…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":188135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2961,336,224,6080,5337],"class_list":{"0":"post-188134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-lawsuits","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-county","14":"tag-losangeles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115120335166753347","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}