A Delta Airlines plane crew was unaware that a flap from the wing had fallen onto the driveway of a North Carolina home mid-flight.
A Delta Air Lines flight landed safely in North Carolina this week, but not before a piece of the aircraft fell from the sky and crashed onto a residential driveway in Raleigh.
The incident occurred on Wednesday (June 2) when a trailing edge flap from the left wing of a Delta Boeing 737-900ER broke away mid-flight during a route from Atlanta to Raleigh-Durham International Airport, according to Delta and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The flap landed in the middle of a Raleigh homeowner’s driveway, just a few yards from their parked car, startling the neighborhood. No injuries on the ground or in the air were reported.
The aircraft, which was a Delta flight 3247, was carrying 109 passengers and six crew members.
It had been delayed Tuesday evening due to thunderstorms in Georgia and landed safely in Raleigh around 1:15AM, about 55 minutes behind schedule, according to FlightAware.
Incredibly, the crew on board was seemingly unaware that the flap had detached until after the plane had landed.
In a statement to USA Today, Delta confirmed: “After the aircraft landed safely, it was observed that a portion of the left wing’s trailing edge flap was not in place. Delta is fully supporting retrieval efforts and will cooperate with investigations as nothing is more important than safety.”
Trailing edge flaps are necessary during takeoff and landing to help slow the aircraft and maintain altitude. According to NASA, it is visible to passengers seated near the wings.
The FAA confirmed it is investigating the incident and working to confirm whether the aircraft part discovered in the Raleigh driveway is indeed the missing flap from the Delta jet.
The unusual incident mirrors previous cases involving Delta aircraft, including a 2023 episode when an emergency slide detached mid-flight and landed in front of a beach house owned by a lawyer whose firm happened to be suing Boeing at the time.
“We are right on the beach and I saw it was sitting on the breakers,” New York attorney Jake Bissell-Linsk told The New York Post.
Bissell-Linsk said he stepped outside to take pictures of the deflated yellow slide, which appeared intact despite being trapped in rocks and floating in the surf.
“I didn’t want to touch it, but I got close enough to get a close look at it,” he said. “Our case is all about safety issues at Boeing, and this slide is literally right in front of my house.”
Later that day, around 5PM, a crew of Delta workers arrived, pulled the chute from the water, and loaded it into the back of a pickup truck.
“My neighbor called the FAA hotline, and they are closed on Sundays,” Bissell-Linsk explained. “So he just called Delta.
“I see this Delta truck pull up and watch them pull it out of the water,” he added. “It took them about 10 minutes.”