The tire of a commercial Delta Boeing plane fell off the wheel in Atlanta.
January 23, 2024, 6:20 p.m. ET
• 3 min reading
The FAA said Tuesday it was investigating after a tire under the front nose of a Delta Boeing 757 fell off one of the wheels and rolled down a nearby embankment.
The incident occurred around 11:15 a.m. local time on Saturday at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia while Delta Flight 982 was taxiing to Bogota, Colombia, before takeoff.
In an FAA report, an air traffic control audio recording can be heard as an air traffic controller alerting the pilot to the situation and saying, “One of your nose tires just came loose; He just taxied off the runway behind you.”
In this Nov. 14, 2019, file photo, a Delta Airlines aircraft is seen landing on final approach with the landing gear extended at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Photo only via Getty Images, FILE
According to the report, the tire also landed on the south side of the runway, on an embankment.
After the incident, passengers and their luggage were returned to the terminal by buses and their departure was delayed. According to the FAA report, the passengers were transferred to another aircraft to their destination.
No injuries were reported in the incident, the FAA said.
In a statement Tuesday, Delta apologized “to our customers for the inconvenience.”
News of the Boeing incident comes weeks after a door plug in the middle of the cabin fell off during the ascent of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9, and days after the FAA recommended that airline operators use a different model of Boeing aircraft check.
On January 5, the door plug fell off the Alaska Airlines plane after it took off from Portland to Ontario, California. There were six crew members and 171 passengers on board Flight 1282, the airline previously said.
Shortly after takeoff, the cabin depressurized and the pilots called for an emergency landing, according to a transcript of an air traffic control call obtained by LiveATC.net.
The door was found a few days later. The NTSB is investigating the incident.