Aviation

23.9, incident

Japan: two fragments that appeared to be part of an engine on an Air India jetliner fell from the aircraft and hit two cars near Narita airport in Chiba Prefecture. No one was injured in the incident. Air India Flight 307, a Boeing 747 bound for Delhi, had returned to the airport immediately after take-off after experiencing engine trouble, they said, indicating the likelihood that the two incidents were linked. The Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission decided Monday to send two investigators to the airport to look into the incidents. The crew of the four engine jumbo jet detected an abnormal noise coming from one of the two engines on the right wing immediately after take-off, and the aircraft returned to the airport. Around the same time, a falling fragment hit a passenger car in the parking lot of a residence in Sammu, Chiba Prefecture, piercing and sticking in its windshield, while another fragment hit the body of another car. The two fragments were about eight centimetres long, five centimetres in width and two centimetres thick.