Northwest Flight Returns To City Due To Mechanical Problems

A Northwest Airlines flight, 30 minutes into a trip to Minneapolis, turned back to Spokane due to mechanical problems Thursday morning.

Northwest Flight 616 returned safely. The pilot said the plane had to return because the plane’s pressurization equipment wasn’t working. The problem was later diagnosed as a loose clamp, an airline official said.

That prevented the plane from getting to cruising altitude. The plane couldn’t dump its fuel and still had quite a bit in its tanks. It had to circle for 20 minutes to burn 1,000 pounds of fuel. After taking off at 7:35 a.m., the MD-80 returned to Spokane at about 8:50 a.m.

, DataTimes