FAA probes jet's taxiway landing

ATLANTA, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. aviation officials say they're investigating why a Delta Air Lines flight from Rio de Janeiro landed on an Atlanta airport taxiway.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said Tuesday even though the pilot of Delta Flight 60 had declared a medical emergency just before landing at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport shortly after 6 a.m. Monday, the craft should not have landed on a taxiway instead of a runway, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Delta spokesman Anthony Black told the newspaper the pilot and co-pilot have been "relieved of active flying pending the completion of the investigations, and we're cooperating with the investigations."

Officials said Flight 60 landed Hartsfield's "taxiway M right," which runs parallel and north of its 12,000-foot runway 27. Bergen told the Journal-Constitution none of the 183 passengers or 12 crew members was injured and there were no other planes on the taxiway.

She said she could not remember another case where a jet landed on an airport taxiway.