Delta flight to Florida descends nearly 30,000 feet in minutes following cabin pressure issue

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Delta Air Lines diverted an Atlanta flight headed to Florida after an unknown issue caused the cabin's oxygen masks to be released.

News outlets report the Fort Lauderdale-bound plane made an emergency landing at Tampa International Airport about an hour after it left Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

The plane also descended from 39,000 feet to 10,000 feet in the span of seven minutes, per Flight Aware.

In photos and video taken from inside the cabin, oxygen masks — which were manually deployed by the crew — could be seen hanging from the cabin's ceiling.

"I texted my wife and dad I loved them. Told my mom I love her and hugged my son," Twitter user @BrutusOsceola wrote.

"There was a scary 60 to 90 seconds where we really didn't know what was going on. At 15,000 feet in the air, it's a scary moment for sure," Harris DeWoskin told WSB-TV.

A statement by Delta says the plane was diverted out of an abundance of caution over the "cabin pressure irregularity." It says the plane is now being evaluated by maintenance technicians.

"We apologize to our customers on flight 2353 from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale, which diverted to Tampa out of an abundance of caution and landed without incident following a cabin pressurization irregularity en route," the airline stated.

Delta said the passengers were bused about four hours to their original destination.

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