United’s flight from Zurich to Chicago O’Hare lost an emergency slide on Monday, as it floated down over a Chicago-area neighborhood prior to arrival. The Boeing 767 was discovered to have a missing slide on arrival. It landed in the backyard of a home close to the airport, damaging a roof.
According to the homeowner, his family heard a boom shortly after noon. He describes it as “larger than a small car.”
Investigators moving an emergency evacuation inflatable slide into a truck earlier this afternoon outside a home on N. Chester Ave. FAA confirms it fell from a United flight from Switzerland, which landed safely. United: 155 passengers & 10 crew members were on board. @WGNNews pic.twitter.com/VmFYKBmBWv
— Courtney Spinelli (@CourtSpinelliTV) July 17, 2023
The slide that fell off flight 12 today and floated down to North Chester in Norridge caught on security cam. Starts at about 12:27:37 you can see it floating down. @nbcchicago @ABC7Chicago @fox32news @WGNNews @cbschicago @UnitedAirlines @CNN @FAANews @ohare @fly2ohare pic.twitter.com/l5OaN4DCkU
— Steven Preston (@streaker_67) July 18, 2023
In 2019 an evacuation slide fell from a Delta flight as it landed in Boston. And of all the things that might fall this is one of the better ones? A Utah woman who lives near the Salt Lake City airport claimed planes were dumping poop in her driveway. And in 2018 a fuel cap off a United plane fell from the sky. Toilet paper has fallen from the sky, and even once a flight attendant – who lived.
Isn’t the trajectory wrong? It should move from left to right, following the A/C. Not right to left.
United was going to send the cops over and beat the crap out of the homeowner to get their equipment back but they let it slide this time.
the family got 1,000 lb evac slide through their roof but United gave them 5,000 MileagePlus miles for their troubles.
Hmmmmm..l must be missing something. How does a slide fall from a plane, any plane, while it is inflight????? Why is there no reporting on a door that was opened inflight, no pax videos of the open door and no interviews with the pax on the plane who witnessed this?
There is much more to this story than is being told.
Picard
Front yard..
The 767 has an over wing slide that mounts externally on each side of the aircraft. Very possible for the access panel to not be securely latched or the squib that opens the door fired and the slide fell from the aircraft.
@Jean luc Picard
If you remember the Korean airlines misadventure a few weeks ago of the gentlemen who opened the emergency door on final approach.
The escape slide was not attached to the door. It was in a compartment just under the door behind an exterior panel. If the door is opened while armed, the slide blows its exterior hatch and inflates just below the opening.
In this situation, this flight was on its final approach. Maybe a crossed wire prematurely blew the cover and the slide was ripped away or some nut fiddled with the door handle without actually opening the door. I’m sure those sitting in the immediate area of the door got a shock when the slide inflated and then ripped from the fuselage.
Had this happen at a hotel in NYC late one night. I was sound asleep, but travel partner was up reading e-mails and such on the tablet. Suddenly, someone come thru the locked door unannounced. Intruder realized someone was awake and make some type of excuse about maintenance . Yet, no uniform, no work clothes, no tool box, etc. He left the room apologizing. We relocked the door and put a chair in front with couple of water glasses balanced on a suitcase that would fall if some one came in again.
Front desk blew us off. We checked out the following morning!!