Report of Smoke Sends Plane Back for Emergency Landing

A Delta Connection regional jet made an emergency landing at Dulles International Airport yesterday after its pilots reported smoke in the cockpit, authorities said.

None of the plane's 59 passengers or four crew members was injured in the incident, and the plane, a CRJ900, was not damaged, according to a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board.

The smoke, or fumes, was apparently caused by residue from excess cleaning fluid, the spokesman said.

The plane, operated by Freedom Airlines, had left Dulles for Atlanta shortly before 9 a.m. but returned to land just a few minutes later, according to the online FlightAware flight-tracking service.

The plane stopped on one of Dulles's runways, and an evacuation was monitored by firefighters, according to an airport official. An FAA official said the plane's crew and passengers left the jet using stairs, not emergency slides.

The runway, 19 Left, was closed until about 10 a.m., but an airport spokesman said the shutdown's impact on operations was minimal.

Although the NTSB took a report on the landing, it did not initiate an official investigation. Peter Knudson, a NTSB spokesman, said in an e-mail that investigators did not uncover any "significant safety issues" in the incident.

A spokesman for Freedom Airlines said yesterday morning that he did not know anything about the emergency landing. The spokesman and other representatives of the carrier did not return two other phone messages yesterday afternoon.