Delta Passengers Panic After Mid-Atlantic Engine Failure: ‘I Thought We Were Going to Die’

A Delta Air Lines flight from Ireland to New York City turned into a mid-air nightmare this week after passengers say the aircraft suddenly lost power and plunged into darkness high above the Atlantic Ocean.

Delta Flight DL45, a Boeing 767-300 carrying more than 200 passengers, had taken off from Dublin Airport on Tuesday evening bound for JFK International in New York. Two hours into the journey, travelers say the plane jolted violently, cabin lights flickered out, and terrified passengers were told to reach for their life vests.

“I kid you not, I thought we were going to die,” said passenger and TikTok creator Lohanny Santos, who documented the ordeal in a viral video that has since racked up hundreds of thousands of views. “The screens went dark, the plane shook, and someone yelled for us to grab the life vests. Everyone was crying. It felt like a movie.”

Santos said the left engine reportedly failed as the plane cruised thousands of feet above the ocean. “All of a sudden, the left engine went out,” she recalled. “Then everything went black. We didn’t hear from the pilot for what felt like forever. The girl next to me started sobbing.”

After what passengers described as an “eternal silence,” the captain’s voice finally broke through the intercom. He announced the flight would divert north to Iceland because of “technical difficulties.”

The news offered little comfort. “People were clinging to strangers,” Santos said. “It was complete panic.”

In her follow-up TikTok, Santos thanked “the man sitting next to me” for keeping her calm during the chaos. That man turned out to be Irish television and radio host Martin King, who can be seen in her video reassuring her as the plane trembled.

“He helped me through it,” Santos said, visibly shaken but smiling. “He let me hold his hand the whole time while I was shaking. Total angel.”

She also praised her fellow travelers for finding moments of kindness in the crisis. “Shoutout to the girl beside me for her breathing exercises and the woman behind me for the Ring Pop,” she joked. “We all trauma bonded on that plane.”

After roughly an hour of tense flight time, the aircraft safely touched down at Keflavík International Airport in Iceland around 8:45 p.m. local time. Emergency crews were already on standby.

“When we landed, everyone started clapping,” Santos said. “We were just relieved. I’ve never felt that grateful to be on solid ground.”

Passengers were taken to hotels in Reykjavik for the night before boarding a replacement flight the next day. They arrived safely in New York around 9 p.m. Wednesday.

“Life has a funny way of bringing people together,” Santos wrote in another video, showing her sharing celebratory shots with fellow passengers in an Icelandic bar. “We’re just happy to be alive.”

Aviation analysts say incidents like this—though terrifying—are extremely rare. Commercial aircraft are designed to safely continue flying with one engine, and pilots are trained extensively for such scenarios. Still, the emotional toll on passengers can be profound.

“This was the most insane thing ever,” Santos said. “Everyone on that flight became family.”

Delta Air Lines confirmed that Flight DL45 diverted “out of an abundance of caution” and said maintenance teams are inspecting the aircraft in Iceland. The airline did not provide details on the nature of the technical issue.