A Delta Airlines Boeing 737-800 flew from Orlando to Austin on Tuesday with a partially broken, dislodged piece of the wing. Despite the dislodged outboard left flap, flight 1893 landed safely. Here’s video of the broken piece, inflight and as the aircraft landed:
Passenger video shows a detached wing flap on an Austin-bound Delta flight on Tuesday. ♂️ pic.twitter.com/oE8Mvd0wSj
— Trumpusa1 (@Trumpusa1A1) August 21, 2025
WATCH: Delta Boeing 737-800 flight DL1893 from Orlando landed in Austin yesterday with the left wing aft flap detached.
: Shanila Arif pic.twitter.com/C7eI5AdG6Y— Turbine Traveller (@Turbinetraveler) August 21, 2025
Something similar happened last month – a trailing‑edge wing flap from Delta Flight 3247, a Boeing 737‑900 that flew from Atlanta to Raleigh‑Durham, was discovered in the driveway of a Raleigh home. Crew remained unaware anything was amiss until the inspection upon landing.
Delta Boeing 737-900ER wing flap was also found on a driveway in a Raleigh neighborhood back in July. pic.twitter.com/WV2i9xz9BD
— Turbine Traveller (@Turbinetraveler) August 21, 2025
Usually pilots wouldn’t have warning for something like this. The 737’s flap logic looks for left‑right mismatches while the flaps move. If both main flaps travel together and their sensors agree, the system is happy. There’s no sensor that says “hey, your small aft panel fell off.” So unless the movement becomes uneven or skewed, there’s no caution message.
- At cruise with flaps up, the missing piece slightly changes the wing’s shape on the left side, but it’s minor. Autopilot and trim erase it.
- On approach with flaps down it becomes noticeable. The right wing (with all its flap area intact) creates a bit more lift and drag, so the jet wants to bank left. The fix is simple: a touch of right aileron and right rudder. This would be steady and not dramatic. The pilot might notice a little vibration.
- There is some handling hazard on landing, but it’s manageable (not zero). There’s some asymmetric lift and drag at low speed. There may be slightly less stall margin on the damaged side. The left wing no longer has as much “effective flap” as the right. The ideal target landing speed would be a hair higher than the computer assumed. You land normally with a bit of wheel into the “light” wing.
- The real issues are more pilot workload at slow speed because the plane isn’t perfectly symmetrical (add a touch of speed/authority) and falling debris if the piece detaches inflight as we saw that in the Raleigh incident last month).
- If a piece half‑detached and jammed another surface (flap, aileron, fairing), you could have a control‑jamming problem during extension. That wasn’t in place here.
Carriers keep an eye on 737 trailing‑edge hardware in general because wear or cracking at tracks and attachments can lead to losing a flap segment and reduced controllability. That’s a different mechanism than a single aft panel separating, but it’s why this area gets scrutiny.
Here, the small aft section of the left flap is missing. That won’t trigger a cockpit alert by itself, and in cruise the crew might not notice much. On approach, they’ll feel a gentle left‑roll tendency and it was easily manageable. The landing is straightforward, though workload is higher and the ideal speed margin is a little more than planned. The larger risk is the part falling somewhere it shouldn’t, not the airplane being uncontrollable.
I’d love for the commercial pilots, especially 737 pilots, among my readers to share their perspective if I’m missing something (I have a decent amount of sim time only – am definitely not a pilot).
Premium wing flaps clearly!
Hey Boeing. Why not take a permanent marker and write the aircraft tail number on the wing flaps? This way, when they fall off, first responders can quickly identify which aircraft is missing an aft panel that may have crashed through the roof of a home or a vehicle sunroof.
I’ve often wondered if Delta waves more maintenance issues vs United and AA.
Their mechanics have no protection from at-will firing and are thus clearly more impacted by the importance of an operation than their union-represented friends at AA and UA. By that alone, they’d clearly have more incentive to keep the plane flying.
My own personal experience recently is on a 30-year old Airbus in First on Delta. The “remodeled” plane literally had lights and entire overhead panels falling out of the entire first class area yet Delta kept the plane flying. I’ve seen AA fly with a gross first class seat out of commission (but it’s blocked and not used, just an eyesore) but this Delta plane I was on had pretty clear electrical cords just hanging from the ceiling. Coupled with how the plane felt like a toy aircraft with no wind (looking at the flaps, they seemed to just be wobbling on the wing — something I haven’t experienced on any AA Airbus aircraft).
Delta, against all odds, maintains a higher operational performance with fewer spare aircraft and an older fleet vs AA. It does make you wonder if their mechanics just let a lot more slide since they have little recourse to keep a plane flying, if pressured.
@Ken A
I know it’s easy to dump on Boeing these days but this is a 25 year old plane…
*waives
Waives with the letter i in the middle of the word, not waves. As in,
I don’t ask for any waivers for proper spelling of homophones in my online comments; my commitment to spelling words correctly is unwavering.
@Julie — I agree that Delta’s flight attendants, mechanics, and ground workers should join their dispatchers and pilots (since 1934!) in organizing.
That said, issues with aircraft can and do happen, regardless; glad everyone was alright here!
It’s early, Sorry JimC2. You are correct.
1990, these issues do happen, absolutely. I’m sure there are examples of AA and UA with similar issues but I can’t actually recall the last time we heard about part of a wing falling off an AA or UA aircraft. United had the infamous engine issue on a 77A over the Pacific years ago now but I haven’t heard anything similar to a flap just falling off for any major airline aside from Delta in recent memory. Perhaps it’s just recency bias. My own personal experience recently just was rather shocking to see electrical cords dangling in front of me in first class. I mentioned it to the Flight Attendants and they just laughed and said “yeah, that’s not uncommon. just don’t touch it”
picking anecdotes out of thin air for a fleet of almost 1000 aircraft means precisely… nothing.
Gary posts pictures repeatedly of AA aircraft with broken pieces. UA aircraft have had multiple major incidents that are related to maintenance.
The FAA and NTSB will investigate as they should. It is entirely possible that there is a systemic issue w/ the flap attachments on the 737. It is also possible that DL maintenance or their contractor may have misinstalled something; it’s not like AA hasn’t had multiple issues with misinstalled parts on the 737.
someone needs to figure it out. Pointing fingers early in an investigation rarely ends up highlighting anywhere close to the truth.
and it is a tribute to the 737 that the plane landed as smoothly as it did w/ one flap hanging off the back of the wing.
@Julie — This incident is likely one of those ‘it looks worse than it is’ situations. And, if we really need to start comparing, this is far better than losing a ‘door plug’ like on AS 1282.
I tend to agree with @Tim Dunn, kudos to the crew, and wouldn’t hold this one-off against Delta or any airline when it inevitably happens to them, too.
It’d be more of an issue if a pattern emerged, like, if repeatedly the same airline starts having the same issue (then I might think ‘sabotage’.)
It’s anecdotal, but I’ve been on ample recent domestic and international flights with DL, B6, AA, and UA, on a variety of aircraft, all of which seemed well-maintained.
Unless circumstances change, I still trust US carriers to prioritize our safety (if they could then focus on ‘punctuality,’ that’d be swell, but I appreciate that there is often a ‘hierarchy of needs’).
That said, nothing is without risk. Jet aircraft are still metal tubes with wings and mini-rockets going +500 mph at over 30,000 feet. So, if our time comes, it has been nice…
Seriously, though, I am yet to feel unsafe on-board any of these airlines. Even when incidents occur, the crews will do their best to remedy as here.
*re-reads post*
“Second Delta 737 In Six Weeks…”
Eh, probably just a coincidence…
Next month, Gary posts: “Third De…”
*gulp*
Is it me, or did that flip split in half? Looks to me like it’s only half the flap and the other one is sitting on the ground somewhere. I have no idea what would have been the root cause for that, which makes it interesting.
@Julie, I was just trying to have a bit of fun with wordplay. I feel kinda bad that you apologized!
That’s a smart question about differences in how each airline manages their maintenance (within the legal boundaries set by the FAA, of course).
“On approach with flaps down it becomes noticeable. The right wing (with all its flap area intact) creates a bit more lift and drag, so the jet wants to bank left”. I’m no pilot, but I am an engineer. My guess would have been that it would tend to bank right, perhaps some pilots that follow this blog could comment.
@JimC2
Not at all. I dislike spelling mistakes, as well. I missed that one!
Tim,
“picking anecdotes out of thin air for a fleet of almost 1000 aircraft means precisely… nothing.”
Did you have an example of electrical wiring falling out of AA and UA ceilings recently like my example? Much less Flight Attendants laughing about it to their first class passengers? How about wing flaps falling off?
Or to my point about how Mechanics at Delta have no “cover” from their union if they make a difficult choice to ground a plane when their operational leaders disagree. I’m noting the incentive alignments with Delta mechanics. It just isn’t that way when your mechanics are unionized. They can make difficult decisions where management disagrees with you without repercussions. A Delta mechanic can file a whistle blower complaint or tell the press after they’ve been fired but they simply do not have similar work rule or union protection to make difficult decisions that the operational leadership may disagree with.
Is this happening? I don’t know. But neither do you and the incentives are rather obvious and I just haven’t seen flaps falling off planes or things like electrical cords waived as they fall out of the ceiling.
“That said, nothing is without risk. Jet aircraft are still metal tubes with wings and mini-rockets going +500 mph at over 30,000 feet. So, if our time comes, it has been nice…”
Your commitment to safety is appreciated. I think my safety expectations are higher than this.
@Julie — I, not Tim, said that last part, and a lot more that you cut out… but, whatever. If you’re genuinely concerned about flying, I wouldn’t worry too much; if you’re just trying to attack Delta, we can find fault with each company; if you’re promoting unions, generally, then I happen to agree, but I don’t think it would have made much difference in this particular context.
“Did a piece of my gorram plane fall off for no apparent reason?”
Julie,
if you truly were objective, you would have data. UA had a number of issues last year of things falling off planes. The FAA investigated and found no trends.
They will do the same w/ these DL 737 issues.
It is precisely because you want to throw shade rather than deal w/ facts and data that you post what you do, which is precisely why 1990 accurately noted reality.