- …As Boeing 787 engine breaks apart mid-air
People screamed and ran for cover after plane debris “rained like bullets” on their homes near Rome’s main airport.
An air investigation is underway after bits of a Boeing 787 fell out of the sky causing extensive damage and injuring at least one person.
The pebble-size fragments damaged cars and roofs in the vicinity of Rome’s Fiumicino airport when they fell from the Norwegian airline’s plane after takeoff on Saturday.
One witness told Italian newspaper, Il Messaggero: “They were like bullets. My shirt was on fire!”
And another said: “It looked like a strong hailstorm but it was sunny. I went out on the balcony and saw it was a storm of steel and iron. I screamed and ran into the house.”
According to municipal sources, 25 cars and 12 homes were damaged. One 54-year-old man was hit by a splinter He said he felt “lucky to be alive.”
Worried residents came out on to the streets to pick up the pieces, mostly measuring ten to 20 centimetres.
Some of the fragments rained down on parked cars, smashing windowsbecause of the violent impact.
The Mayor, Esterino Montino confirmed the incident on his Facebook page and called for urgent action to avoid further danger.
He wrote: “Around 4:40 pm on Saturday, an aircraft taking off from the Leonardo da Vinci airport suffered a breakdown and had to return.
“During the breakdown, however, it lost metal pieces that fell at great speed to the ground, at Via Mariotti in Isola Sacra.”
“When falling, these fragments hit parked cars, garden sheds and other objects, damaging them. Local police, state police, the Carabinieri police, fire brigade and civil protection officers went to the site.”
The Mayor continued: “What happened confirms the issue of security that we have raised on several occasions in the appropriate forums.
“As an administration we have repeatedly raised the problem of the compatibility of the first runway with the city.”
“For this we had also reached an agreement with ADR so that the track would not be used at night and early in the morning. Instead this agreement is disregarded.
A spokeswoman for Norwegian airlines told Euronews that a flight from Rome to Los Angeles had to go back to Fiumicino airport “due to indications of a technical failure of one of the engines.”
She added that the aircraft landed safely.
Culled from thesun.co.uk
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