It was around 12:15 p.m. Monday when the man heard a loud bang. As he told the news channel WLS, he was having lunch with his father-in-law and his son. When he went outside into the backyard, he could hardly believe it: there was an airplane’s escape slide.
They lost a United Airlines Boeing 767 that had taken off from Zurich and landed at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. There were 155 passengers and ten crew members on board the plane. After landing, maintenance workers found that the plane’s evacuation slide was missing.
Luckily, no one got hurt. However, the roof of the house, the downpipe and a window pane were damaged in the impact. It is unclear why the slide fell out of the plane.
In a statement to the TV station, United Airlines said it had contacted the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after the incident. They will now investigate the case in detail.
Although it’s rare, it’s not the first time a Boeing 767 has lost its chute. In April 2016, one such example crashed onto the porch of a house near Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, Arizona. The resident escaped with a fright.
In December 2019, a similar incident occurred in Boston near Logan Airport. There, the inflatable part, weighing around 160 kilograms, fell from a Delta Air Lines machine into a garden. In an emergency, the inflatable escape slides are used to quickly evacuate the cabin.
Watch the video: Charlotte, USA: This plane has a problem. The front landing gear cannot be extended. The aircraft will hit the ground hard with its fuselage. A passenger films the emergency landing.
Sources: Associated Press, WLS-TV
