Smoke in cockpit prompts Allegiant flight to make emergency landing

Plane was headed to Sanford airport

SANFORD, Fla. –  

An Allegiant Airlines flight from South Bend, Indiana, to Orlando Sanford International Airport was diverted Wednesday afternoon to Jacksonville.

Flight 749 was scheduled to land in Sanford at 1:16 p.m., but landed at 1:26 p.m.at Jacksonville International Airport. There was no immediate word what caused the smoke alert.

The airline said 166 people were on board. No injuries were reported.

"All they said (is that) they had trouble. (The) captain says there's trouble and they're going to pull us down in Jacksonville," passenger Barbara Dolty said.

"t kind of came abruptly.  Didn't see anything wrong with the plane or anything. I really wasn't worried until we landed.  There were about six fire trucks waiting for us," passenger Briana Vega said. "I didn't smell anything.  Didn't see anything. They kind of followed us into the gate, but there was no sign of any smoke."

Vega said they were unaware of the issue until they were off the plane.

"I was nervous when we first landed because they didn't tell us what was going on. We didn't find out until we got outside the airplane that there was smoke in the cockpit," she said.

Allegiant brought another plane to Jacksonville to fly the passengers to Sanford. 

Stay with ClickOrlando.com for more on this developing story.

Barbara Dolty


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