A Delta Air Lines plane has been forced to make an emergency landing and evacuate after the cabin filled with a strange “haze” minutes after take-off.

Delta Flight 876 looped back to the airport at Atlanta, Georgia, on Monday about 9am (local time).

All 94 passengers and crew safely evacuated using emergency slides after touching down at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

It was the third recent transport mishap involving a Delta Air Lines flight, following the incredible flipping over of a jet in Toronto earlier this month. 

In the latest incident, video from inside the cabin shows what was initially thought to be smoke shrouding passengers.

Some travellers were covering their mouths and noses to avoid inhaling the unknown substance.

The Boeing aircraft had been destined for Columbia, South Carolina.

“The flight crew followed procedures to return to Atlanta when a haze inside the aircraft was observed after departure,” a Delta spokesperson said.

“Nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and people, and we apologise to our customers for the experience.”

The US’s Federal Flight Administration is investigating the incident.

One passenger, Kristin Morris, told CNN the haze began to fill the plane five to 10 minutes after taking off from Atlanta.

“A few of us passengers started to question why or what was going on. People started screaming ‘smoke, smoke, smoke’,” Morris said.

“We were in the air for about 20 minutes, and it seemed to take a while before we landed.”

Morris told CNN that after everyone was evacuated they were put in a conference room and then let go without receiving an answer.

An aviation analyst, Captain John Cox, told NBC News that the haze was most likely related to the plane’s air-conditioning or a pressurisation issue and would not have been dangerous for those on board.

Last week, a Delta Air Lines jet with 80 people on board flipped upside down upon landing in Toronto, Canada, with no fatalities.

Another Delta Flight DL43 was forced back to Los Angeles when smoke was detected in the gallery.

There have also been other recent crashes in North America.

An US Army helicopter collided with a CRJ-700 passenger jet in Washington, DC, killing 67 people, while at least seven people died when a medical transport plane crashed in Philadelphia, and 10 were killed in a passenger plane crash in Alaska.