Emergency slide falls off Boeing plane and drifts to strange location

The emergency slide fell off Delta Flight 520 mid-flight Friday morning, forcing the Los Angeles-bound flight to return to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK).

Sources told the New York Post that the bizarre incident triggered an emergency alert at around 8:30 a.m. local time on April 26 on Flight 520, which had departed Queens Airport an hour earlier. Fortunately, there were no injuries.

Cầu trượt thoát hiểm rớt khỏi máy bay Boeing và trôi tới địa điểm kỳ lạ- Ảnh 1. — Emergency slide falls off Delta plane

Two days later, the emergency slide was found washed up in front of the beach house of a lawyer whose firm is suing Boeing over safety issues following the dislodged door of an Alaska Airlines plane in January.

Jake Bissell-Linsk, a New York attorney, said he was surprised around noon Sunday when he looked out the window of his beachfront home in Belle Harbor, Queens.

There — stuck on the rocks a few metres from his front yard in a strange coincidence — was the emergency slide that had fallen off a Boeing 767.

“We were right on the beach and I saw it lying on the breakwater,” he said.

While aviation officials have been searching for the missing slide in Jamaica Bay since Friday afternoon, it turns out the slide is farther away than they expected — since Bissell-Linsk's home faces the Atlantic Ocean.

Belle Harbor is located 10 km southeast of JFK International Airport. The escape slide is found just off Beach 129th and Beach 130th on the south shore of the Rockaway Peninsula.

Cầu trượt thoát hiểm rớt khỏi máy bay Boeing và trôi tới địa điểm kỳ lạ- Ảnh 2. — The location of the slide that fell is not far from JFK airport.

Mr Bissell-Linsk got close enough to take a photo of the yellow, deflated slide. “I didn’t want to touch it, but I got close enough to get a good look at it,” he said. “Our situation is all about safety at Boeing, and this slide is literally right in front of my house.”

A few hours later, around 5 p.m., a team of Delta employees arrived and retrieved the slide.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the crash involving Delta Flight 520. The flight returned safely to JFK International Airport in New York at around 8:35 a.m. local time on April 26 after the crew reported turbulence.

"Delta confirms that the emergency slide has been located. As stated on Friday, we will cooperate fully with all relevant investigations," a Delta spokesperson said on Monday, April 29.

Cầu trượt thoát hiểm rớt khỏi máy bay Boeing và trôi tới địa điểm kỳ lạ- Ảnh 3. — Series of incidents with US airlines

Mr. Bissell-Linsk is a partner at the law firm Labaton Keller Sucharow, which sued Boeing on January 30 in Alexandria federal court, accusing the plane maker of making false and misleading safety statements after the Alaska Airlines plane door failure.

The incident has damaged the reputation of the US aerospace giant, with Boeing's CEO announcing he will leave at the end of the year.

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