ANCHORAGE, Alaska _ A Delta Air Lines flight carrying 194 passengers from Beijing to Seattle had to make an emergency stopover Monday on a remote Aleutian island.
The flight landed at Shemya "due to a potential engine issue," according to a Delta statement.
A new aircraft to continue the flight to Seattle was en route to the stranded passengers and crew as of midmorning Monday, Delta spokesperson Drake Castaneda said in an email. The airline was also sending maintenance technicians, airport customer service agents and a new crew to operate the flight to Seattle.
Shemya's only airstrip is a 10,000-foot runway at Eareckson Air Station, which houses a radar array and serves as a U.S. Air Force refueling hub and a diversion airport for civilian aircraft like the Delta flight that landed there. It hasn't been an active Air Force base since 1994.
A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration couldn't be reached Monday due to the partial federal government shutdown.
