Remember last year when an airplane door panel fell from the sky, landing on a North Carolina golf course? While that was certainly an unusual and scary situation, an Arizona woman can now top it: an airplane emergency slide dropped from the heavens and landed outside her house.
A Mesa woman tells AZFamily that she’s used to hearing the sounds of planes flying above, but she got more than she ever imagined on Wednesday.
“It was a loud bang and then the house actually shook,” the woman recalls, noting that at first she thought the commotion may have been a downed tree. “It just smelled like sulfur burning.”
When she went to investigate, she found it was anything but a tree.
Someone else had called 911 to report that they had witnessed an object falling from an airplane, AZFamily reports.
“They kind of put two and two together that this must be the emergency slide,” the homeowner says.
A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that the object was indeed an emergency slide and that the agency was investigating the incident.
The slide belonged to an Atlas Air Boeing 767 that was on its final approach to Sky Harbor Airport when the right over-the-wing emergency slide deployed at about 2,800 feet.
The plane, which was carrying only crew members, was able to land safely, the FAA, which is investigating the ordeal, said.
While the only casualty of the unusual event was a tree in the woman’s yard, she can’t help but worry about what could have happened.
“There’s Riverview Park literally in my backyard and the Cubs are currently playing games right now,” she said. “If it had fallen on a car, it still would have been devastating.”
Emergency escape slide from jumbo jet falls from plane and hits Mesa home [AZFamily]
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist