Plane debris rains ‘like bullets’ from the sky sending Rome residents screaming in terror when fragments of metal fall from a Boeing 787 during take-off
- Hundreds of fragments hailed from a Norwegian airlines Boeing 787 on Saturday
- Damage and injury was caused in the vicinity of Rome’s Fiumicino airport
- Pieces of metal smashed car windows and injured at least one person
- One witness told local media: ‘They were like bullets. My shirt was on fire’
Plane debris rained down like bullets when fragments of metal fell off a Boeing 787 taking off in Rome, sending terrified residents scurrying.
An air investigation is underway after locals reported ‘hundreds of pieces’ of the eight inch fragments falling from a Norwegian airlines jet as it departed Rome’s Fiumicino airport on Saturday.
One witness told Italian newspaper, Il Messaggero: ‘They were like bullets. My shirt was on fire!’
Most of the pieces fell around the area of Isola Sacra and littered people’s gardens, much to their amazement.
Residents in the Roman neighborhood of Isola Sacra hold pieces of the debris, which were four to eight inches
Fragments of metal which fell from a Norwegian airlines Boeing 787 on Saturday
Another witness 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 but was not badly hurt. He said he felt ‘lucky to be alive’.
Worried residents came out on to the streets to pick up the pieces, mostly measuring four to eight inches.
Some of the fragments rained down on parked cars, smashing windows because 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 4.40pm 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, Carabinieri, 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.
‘Moreover, now Isola Sacra and Fregene result in the take-off trajectory of the planes that pass, thus, very close to the houses with the risks that today’s events demonstrate.
A spokeswoman for Norwegian airlines said 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’ (stock image of a Norwegian airlines Boeing 787)
‘We urgently need a meeting with ENAC, ENAV and ADR to address and resolve the issue and secure homes and people.’
Residents say they back the Mayor’s views and are scared of a potentially fatal accident.
One resident told the Italian media: ‘I always said a plane or part of it will one day land up inside the house!’
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.