A Delta flight was forced to return to Salt Lake City after pilots received wrong speed indication.
Delta Air Lines flight DL1466 departed runway 16L from Salt Lake City Airport yesterday but pilots stopped the climb at 9,000 feet and started circling due to wrong speed indicator.
The Boeing 737-932(ER), with registration N873DN, circled for more than one hour before returning to Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) due to a malfunctioning speed indicator, possibly caused by a pitot tube issue.
Pitot tubes are instruments used to measure fluid flow velocity, most commonly in aircraft and fluid dynamics applications. They are named after the French engineer Henri Pitot, who invented them in the 18th century.
Pitot tubes are critical instruments
They are critical for measuring airspeed, and their failure can lead to unreliable speed readings, posing a significant risk during flight.
On June 1, 2009, Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330-203 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, tragically crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in the loss of all 228 passengers and crew.
The accident was primarily attributed to the icing of the aircraft’s pitot tubes, leading to erroneous airspeed readings and subsequent pilot error.
