An Air Atlanta Icelandic Boeing 747-400F, operated by Magma Aviation, shed an engine part during its climb out of Liege Airport earlier this week. The 747 was heading to Malta when the engine cowling fell from the jet, crashing down into the property of a local resident.The aircraft, registered TF-AMC, had taken off at 23:30 local time, and was in the climb portion of the flight when the incident occurred. Flying at approximately 5,000 feet (1,500 meters), the 747 was overhead Waremme when a cowling came loose and fell from the plane.

Roof damage

Nobody was hurt in the incident, but the homeowner reportedly suffered damage to the roof of his garage. Louis Demaret, owner of the house, told local media that he heard a loud bang and that the house was shaking. However, he assumed it was related to the storm in the area that night, and couldn’t see any damage from his windows. He told French publication 7sur7,

“We were in our room and we heard the sound of a plane flying over the house at low altitude. Shortly after its passage, a very loud noise occurred. I thought it was due to the storm and nothing was visible from our window. It was only in the morning that we noticed the presence of the part and the damage”

Reportedly, a neighbor came round and alerted him to the aircraft part in his garden. The homeowner contacted local police and fire brigade, who arrived to remove the cover.

The aircraft spent all of yesterday on the ground at Luqa, but returned to service today, presumably after finding and fitting a replacement cowling. The Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) are reported to be visiting the site of the damage.

The 747 is over 28 years old, having originally been delivered to Singapore Airlines in 1994. It was operated by Singapore Airlines Cargo until 2010, when it spent a decade at El Al Israel Airlines hauling cargo. Has been operated by UK-based Magma Aviation since 2020.

Parts falling from planes

Parts don’t often fall off airplanes, and given the huge portion of the planet covered by oceans, when they do, they would likely fall into the sea. However, there have been many documented cases of parts falling into residential areas, which always attract attention.

In 2021, a United Airlines Boeing 777-200 was flying from Denver to Honolulu when it suffered an uncontained engine failure. Huge parts of the cowling fell into the yard of a house in Broomfield, Colorado, and another part landed on a truck, practically destroying it.

The next day, a Boeing 747-400F also had an engine failure, with parts falling and damaging several cars and homes.

In 2019, parts fell from an Airbus aircraft near Toulouse, and in August that year, a Boeing 787 engine part smashed through the window of a car in Italy. Come December, an evacuation slide from a Delta Air Lines Boeing 767 fell into a backyard in Massachusetts.

In the aviation world, there’s even an acronym for things falling off airplanes – TFOA. It can also be referred to as parts departing aircraft (PDA) or objects falling off airplanes (OFA). There are very few documented cases of people dying from falling objects, but colloquially there are a few.

There is a story about a 400-pound chunk of blue ice falling from a jet and hitting a man in a phone booth, causing his death. There is also a grapevine report of an engine falling from a plane in the 1960s crushing a trailer park home and killing the occupant. However, the FAA maintains that no confirmed deaths have been reported to have been caused by objects falling from planes.