One bag dropped from plane found

A railroad employee found one of two bags that fell from an aircraft that left Chicago's Midway Airport and was forced to return because the cabin failed to pressurize.

The garment bag fell from a Delta Connection flight early Sunday when a cargo-bay door opened shortly after takeoff, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The Atlanta-bound plane, carrying 70 passengers, returned safely to Midway.

An employee of the Belt Railway Co. found the luggage Monday in a rail yard nearly a mile from the airport, officials said.

A duffel bag that also fell out of the plane's cargo hold was still missing, said Kate Modolo, a spokeswoman for Atlantic Southeast Airlines, which operated the flight for Delta Connection.

According to the FAA, inspectors had recently written up the plane, a 70-passenger Bombardier CRJ700, for deferred maintenance on a malfunctioning indicator light on the cargo door. However, the plane was cleared to fly after ground crews completed a visual check to ensure the door was properly latched before flight.

The pilots of the plane detected a pressure problem in the cabin and flight instruments indicated the cargo door had opened while airborne, said FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory.

An inspection after the plane returned to Midway showed the cargo door was ajar, Modolo said.

The plane was later flown to Atlanta for inspection and maintenance, Modolo said.

In the few cases in which aircraft doors opened or come off during flight over the years, the most frequent cause was the failure of ground crews to properly latch the doors, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.