An airplane evacuation slide on a United Airlines flight from Switzerland to Chicago fell from the sky mid-flight, landing in a backyard near O'Hare airport.
People inside the house heard a loud "boom" around 12:15 p.m., then noticed the crumpled mass in their yard. One of the residents moved the large deflated slide to the front of the house (as seen in bottom video below), describing it as the size of a car.
Nobody was hurt, and only the house's roof and kitchen screen door were damaged. Video of the falling slide was captured by a security camera, posted by NBC engineer Steven Preston, but it's at a distance, so enlarge the image if you want to check it out (see below, starting at :30).
"When it's all stretched out," [resident Patrick] Devitt told the Chicago station, "it's larger than a small car. It's a very, very big piece of equipment that fell."
Maintenance workers at O'Hare discovered the plane was missing its slide after it landed, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. United Airlines said, "We immediately contacted the FAA and are working with our team to better understand the circumstances around this matter."
Front page thumbnail image: Greg K__ca / shutterstock.com
