The Federal Aviation Administration said it was requiring immediate inspections of some Max 9 planes operated by U.S. airlines or flown in the United States by foreign carriers.

The FAA’s emergency order, which it said will affect about 171 planes worldwide, is the latest blow to Boeing over the Max lineup of jets, which were involved in two deadly crashes shortly after their debut.

On Friday, a fuselage panel blew out on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 seven minutes after takeoff from Portland, Oregon. The rapid loss of cabin pressure pulled the clothes off a child and caused oxygen masks to drop from the ceiling, but miraculously none of the 171 passengers and six members were injured. Pilots made a safe emergency landing.

Hours after the terrifying incident, Alaska Airlines announced that it would ground its entire fleet of 65 Max 9s for inspections and maintenance. CEO Ben Minicucci said Alaska expects the inspections to be completed “in the next few days.”

Alaska said on Saturday that the affected areas on 18 of its Max 9s were inspected during recent, intense maintenance work and were cleared to return to carrying passengers.

Even the short grounding disrupted the airline — the Max 9 accounts for more than one-fourth of Alaska’s fleet — and its passengers. On Saturday, Alaska canceled more than 100 flights, or 15% of its schedule, by late morning on the West Coast, according to FlightAware.

United Airlines said it had inspected 33 of its 79 Max 9s, and pulling the planes from service had caused about 60 canceled flights.

Photos showed a hole in the Alaska jet where an emergency exit is installed when planes are configured to carry a maximum number of passengers. Alaska plugs those doors because its 737 Max 9 jets don’t have enough seats to trigger the requirement for another emergency exit.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board said they would investigate Friday’s incident.

Boeing declined a request to make an executive available for comment. The company, based in Arlington, Virginia, issued a statement saying it supported the FAA’s decision to require immediate inspections. Boeing said it was providing technical help to the investigators.

Analysts said the extent of the damage to Boeing’s brand will depend on what investigators determine caused the blowout.

Richard Aboulafia, a longtime aerospace analyst and consultant, said if the blowout is traced to a manufacturing issue it would put more pressure on Boeing to change its processes, and cash-generating deliveries of new planes could be slowed.

Aboulafia said, however, he doesn’t expect any change in Boeing’s sales of the planes “unless the situation is worse than it seems.” Airlines are snapping up new, more fuel-efficient planes from Boeing and Airbus to meet strong demand for travel coming out of the pandemic.

The plane involved in Friday’s incident is brand-new — it began carrying passengers in November and has made only 145 flights, according to Flightradar24, a flight-tracking service.

The Max — the Max 8 and Max 9 differ mainly in size — is the newest version of Boeing’s venerable 737, a twin-engine, single-aisle plane frequently used on U.S. domestic flights.

More than a decade ago, Boeing considered designing and building an entirely new plane to replace the 737. But afraid of losing sales to European rival Airbus, which was marketing a more fuel-efficient version of its similarly sized A320, Boeing decided to take the shorter path of tweaking the 737 — and the Max was born.

A Max 8 jet operated by Lion Air crashed in Indonesia in 2018, and an Ethiopian Airlines Max 8 crashed in 2019. Regulators around the world grounded the planes for nearly two years while Boeing changed an automated flight control system implicated in the crashes.

Federal prosecutors and Congress questioned whether Boeing had cut corners in its rush to get the Max approved quickly, and with a minimum of training required for pilots. In 2021, Boeing settled a criminal investigation by agreeing to pay $2.5 billion, including a $244 million fine. The company blamed two relatively low-level employees for deceiving the Federal Aviation Administration about flaws in the flight-control system.

Robert Clifford, a Chicago lawyer who is representing families of passengers killed in the Ethiopian crash, said Friday’s incident raised questions of whether regulators were too quick to let Max planes return to flying. He accused Boeing of putting profits over safety.

“This is a company that went from being the gold standard in engineering expertise and precision to now a company that seems like it’s at the bottom of the barrel,” he said.

Boeing has estimated in financial reports that fallout from the two fatal crashes has cost it more than $20 billion. It has reached confidential settlements with most of the families of passengers who died in the crashes.

After a pause following the crashes, airlines resumed buying the Max. But the plane has been plagued by problems unrelated to Friday’s blowout.

Questions about components from suppliers have held up deliveries at times. Last year, the FAA told pilots to limit use of an anti-ice system on the Max in dry conditions because of concern that inlets around the engines could overheat and break away, possibly striking the plane. And in December, Boeing told airlines to inspect the planes for a possible loose bolt in the rudder-control system.

A passenger on a Southwest Airlines jet was killed in 2018 when a piece of engine housing blew off and shattered the window she was sitting next to. However, that incident involved an earlier version of the Boeing 737, not a Max.

Attorney Paul T. Llewellyn told NBC10 Boston in a statement Sunday night that “it is shocking that a sexual predator could brazenly prey on a minor while she used the bathroom on a flight.”

Llewellyn also released a statement on behalf of the family he’s representing, in which they claim their 14-year-old daughter was “targeted and victimized by a child predator who filmed her while using the bathroom” aboard American Airlines flight 1441 from Charlotte to Boston on Sept. 2.

“There is no doubt in our minds this was perpetrated by the lone male flight attendant on board, who directed her to use the first-class bathroom from coach, entered just before her ‘to wash his hands’ – then telling her the seat was broken and ‘not to worry about it’ – and reentering directly after she left,” the family detailed in their statement. “This sequence of events has been corroborated by other passengers on board.”

Officials have previously described the incident as a “potential criminal act” and “possible security issue,” but passengers aboard the American Airlines flight told local media that a woman reported her teenage daughter noticed the camera in the first-class lavatory.

Massachusetts State Police initially reported to WSOC-TV in North Carolina that the episode involved a juvenile, a flight attendant and a cell phone. But State Police later deferred to the FBI as the primary investigating agency because the episode happened in the air, where the FBI has jurisdiction.

Law enforcement officers met the American Airlines passenger jet at the gate when it landed following the complaint, and state police escorted a flight attendant from the plane.

“After using the toilet our daughter realized a largely obscured iPhone had been affixed to the back of the toilet seat to record her, and courageously took a picture of this with her own phone. Very specific features on the hidden phone perfectly matched the one subsequently recovered from the flight attendant by law enforcement, and airline representatives confirmed the official stickers used to secure and hide the phone would not have been accessible to anyone other than crew,” the family revealed, with their attorney providing a photo of the alleged bathroom camera.”

The family says their daughter, and all of them, are “shocked and profoundly disturbed” by what happened.

“It is hard to fathom that a flight attendant – charged with ensuring our safety and security, and to whom the flying public is legally bound to obey – appears to have targeted and exploited our child in obtaining child pornography during a flight. That someone like this was allowed to be in that position of trust – and could follow through with such reckless behavior unchecked – should shock every parent,” the family said, adding they are immensely grateful to state police who met them upon the plane’s landing in Boston, and to the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office who they say are continuing to investigate this crime. “It is our sincerest hope that through these efforts nothing like this can ever be allowed again.”

An FBI spokesperson told NBC10 Boston that the agency had no comment on Sunday, again only confirming that they responded to the incident earlier this month.

American Airlines also declined to comment Sunday night, referring any inquiries back to the FBI.

When the incident happened, the airline released a statement at the time, saying, “We take this matter very seriously and are fully cooperating with law enforcement in their investigation, as safety and security are our highest priorities.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Flight 175 had left Milan, Italy, and was about 40 miles northeast of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport when the crew reported severe turbulence, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which said it will investigate.

The Airbus A350 landed safely at the airport shortly before 7 p.m.

Eleven passengers and crew members were taken to the hospital, Delta said. It didn’t provide details on their injuries or conditions.

A passenger on board the plane told WAGA-TV in Atlanta that nearly a dozen people appeared to have serious head injuries.

“Bunch of blood and awfulness,” the passenger told the station. “My fiancée and I are so freaked out, we are renting a car and driving to our final destination instead.”

The plane was carrying 151 passengers, 10 flight attendants and four pilots, Delta said.

“Delta Care Team members are mobilizing to connect with customers,” Delta said in a statement. “Our priority is taking care of our customers and crew who sustained injuries.”

The airline said Delta agents were providing food, lodging and re-booking for the uninjured customers.

The incident was the latest in a series of recent occurrences where people have been hurt by severe turbulence during flights. Last month, four people were injured aboard an Allegiant Airlines flight to Florida when the plane experienced severe turbulence, sending passengers and crew members airborne. Also in July, seven people were injured on a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Honolulu to Sydney when the plane hit strong turbulence.

In March, flight from Texas to Germany made an emergency landing in Washington, D.C after severe turbulence rocked the plane. Seven people were hospitalized.

According to a recent study from researchers in England, global warming is to blame for the increased frequency in turbulence. Researchers from the University of Reading found that warmer air from carbon dioxide emissions “is increasing windshear in the jet streams, strengthening clear-air turbulence in the North Atlantic and globally.”

The allegations include sexually assaulting female passengers, attacking flight attendants, trying to break into the cockpit, making terror threats, and smoking in airplane lavatories.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the incidents happened as far back as late 2021 and as recently as April of this year.

The FAA can seek fines of up to $37,000 against unruly passengers, but it lacks authority to file criminal charges which is why the agency refers some cases to the FBI.

Reports of passengers acting up on flights peaked in 2021, with many of the roughly 6,000 incidents involving anger over a since-dropped mask requirement. The number dropped under 2,500 last year and is less than 1,200 in 2023, the FAA said.

The FAA said it has referred more than 270 cases to the FBI since late 2021.

Lawmakers approved the bill, called the Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act, which included a provision to raise the retirement age for pilots from 65 to 67 amid a major pilot shortage, in a 351-69 vote.

The effort to raise the retirement age was met with some opposition within the chamber from lawmakers who thought the move could endanger pilot standards and passenger safety. But the Rules Committee blocked an amendment that would have stopped the change.

“America has always been the gold standard in aviation, and this bill ensures that we remain the world leader,” House Transportation Committee Chairman Sam Graves, R-Mo., said in a statement.

Read more at NBCNews.com.

Officials said the Allegiant flight was traveling from Asheville, North Carolina, to St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport with 179 passengers and six crew members onboard when it experienced “severe turbulence” before landing.

According to the flight-tracking site FlightAware, the plane dropped 5,000 feet in altitude in less than two minutes.

A passenger who was on the flight recounted the experience, saying she watched as one the crew members got hurt.

“More than halfway through descending and all of sudden we heard a small turbulence. The stewardess fell to the ground,” said Lisa Spriggs, a passenger on the flight. “Then we hit major turbulence which was petrifying and she was literally like ‘the Matrix.’ You can watch her go up in the air and land straight down. She broke her ankle.”

Another passenger on the flight told NBC affiliate WFLA of Tampa that the turbulence caused “several people” who weren’t wearing seatbelts to hit the ceiling of the plane and that it caused the overhead bins to open up and break.

Passengers said the injured were taken off the plane on stretchers and were transported to the hospital. The conditions of the four injured people are not known at this time.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it will investigate the incident.

Republic Airways Flight 4736 crossed a runway at DCA without clearance the morning of March 7, putting it in the path of another flight — United Airlines Flight 2003 — that had just been cleared for takeoff, the FAA told NBC News on Tuesday.

After clearing the United flight for takeoff, an air traffic controller saw what happened and canceled the clearance.

“United 2003 cancel takeoff clearance,” the air traffic controller said. “Aborting takeoff, aborting takeoff United 2003.”

The Republic pilot had initially been cleared to cross a different runway but turned onto the wrong taxiway, according to the FAA.

The FAA is hosting an impromptu safety summit Wednesday to assess whether changes need to be made to how American flights are regulated.

In an interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen said that while it remains safe to fly, officials have grown concerned as they have begun “to see things that we don’t expect to see.”

Read more about NBC News’ interview with Nolen here.

When a plane takes off and lands at Leesburg Executive Airport, it’s guided by something called a remote air traffic control tower. Devices atop the terminal gather data that’s transmitted to air traffic controllers inside a nearby office park.

“The controllers are looking at a video wall of a 360 degree view of the airport from a location off-airport,” said Scott Coffman, the airport’s manager.

The airport is one of only two in the country where a private company has been testing a remote tower control system. The testing started in 2018 it’s received rave reviews from pilots.

But last week, the FAA stunned the airport community and public officials when it announced it would end the remote tower program in mid-June.

“We were shocked to find this out,” Leesburg Mayor Kelly Burk said. “This has been a very successful program, and we brag about it wherever we go.”

Gabe Muller has been flying out of the airport since 2011, and leads a pilots club. He said remote air traffic control, or ATC, is invaluable, especially with five flight schools in the area.

“To me, it is such a comforting feeling to know I have team that is helping me navigate in and out of here, but also helping everybody else around me as well,” Muller said.

The arrival of the remote tower also spurred growth. Airport operations have been soaring, with take-offs and landings during the hours the remote tower is in operation growing from about 53,000 in 2018 to nearly 78,000 last year.

“To go from a success story to, ‘We’re going to turn it off now,’ is, is a big change for the airport,” Coffman said.

In a statement, the FAA said the shutdown is coming because the private company in charge of the remote tower technology decided not to continue to seek full approval.

“The remote tower in Leesburg is part of a test program. The FAA cannot allow the use of an unapproved system in the National Airspace System. It creates a safety risk,” the statement read in part.

But Coffman and pilots say that having no tower at all in this complicated airspace is a bigger issue.

“My goal here, my mission and my statement is that if we lose our tower we are going to be putting safety at risk,” Muller said.

Elected leaders and pilots have joined forces to ask the FAA to reconsider, or to at-minimum keep the remote tower going until the end of 2023 so they can explore other options.

The Federal Aviation Administration said preliminary indications “traced the outage to a damaged database file.” The agency said it would take steps to avoid another similar disruption.

The breakdown showed how much American air travel depends on the computer system that generates alerts called NOTAMs — or Notice to Air Missions.

Before a plane takes off, pilots and airline dispatchers must review the notices, which include details about bad weather, runway closures or other temporary factors that could affect the flight. The system was once telephone-based but moved online years ago.

The system broke down late Tuesday and was not fixed until midmorning Wednesday. The FAA took the rare step of preventing any planes from taking off for a time, and the cascading chaos led to more than 1,300 flight cancellations and 9,000 delays by early evening on the East Coast, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told a news conference that the problems “led to a ground stop because of the way safety information was moving through the system.”

After the failures were fixed, he warned that travelers could continue to see some effects “rippling through the system.”

Buttigieg said his agency would now try to learn why the system went down.

Longtime aviation insiders could not recall an outage of such magnitude caused by a technology failure. Some compared it in scope to the nationwide shutdown of airspace after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

“Periodically there have been local issues here or there, but this is pretty significant historically,” said Tim Campbell, a former senior vice president of air operations at American Airlines and now a consultant in Minneapolis.

Campbell said there has long been concern about the FAA’s technology, and not just the NOTAM system.

Many of those systems “are old mainframe systems that are generally reliable, but they are out of date,” he said.

John Cox, a former airline pilot and aviation safety expert, said the aviation industry has talked for years about trying to modernize the NOTAM system, but he did not know the age of the servers that the FAA uses.

“I’ve been flying 53 years. I’ve never heard the system go down like this,” Cox said. “So something unusual happened.”

According to FAA advisories, the NOTAM system failed at 8:28 p.m. Tuesday, preventing new or amended notices from being distributed to pilots. The FAA resorted to a telephone hotline to keep departures flying overnight, but as air traffic picked up in the morning, the phone system was overwhelmed.

The FAA ordered all departing flights grounded early Wednesday, affecting all passenger and cargo flights. Some medical flights could get clearance, and the outage did not affect military operations.

President Joe Biden said that he was briefed by Buttigieg.

Buttigieg said the ground stop showed that “safety is going to be our North Star, as it always is.”

“We are now pivoting to focus on understanding the causes of the issue,” he said.

Pilots and safety officials have complained about NOTAMs for years, saying there are too many of them and that some are unnecessary and written in cryptic abbreviations.

The National Transportation Safety Board highlighted the large number of notices in its investigation of a near-disaster in 2017 in San Francisco. An Air Canada jet whose pilots had overlooked a NOTAM about a closed runway nearly landed by mistake on a parallel taxiway. They skimmed just over the tops of four other airliners waiting to take off.

The safety board’s chairman at the time, Robert Sumwalt, noted that the closed runway was mentioned on the eighth of 27 pages of notices for the San Francisco airport, and the entry was written in an arcane fashion.

“That’s what NOTAMs are. They are a bunch of garbage that no one pays any attention to,” he said.

The FAA said in a 2020 report that it modernized the distribution of the notices through a standardized digital format that was to be completed in July of that year.

As the extent of Wednesday’s breakdown became clear and airlines delayed more flights, passengers scrambled to rearrange trips. Many said they had trouble finding out how long the delays would last.

“There is just a lot of frustration, a lot of confusion,” said Ryan Ososki, who was trying to fly from Washington, D.C., to California for a conference.

Julia Macpherson was on a United flight from Sydney to Los Angeles when she learned of possible delays.

“As I was up in the air, I got news from my friend who was also traveling overseas that there was a power outage,” said Macpherson, who was returning to Jacksonville, Florida, from Tasmania.

Passengers at airports in Chicago, Atlanta and elsewhere reported similar experiences.

European flights into the U.S. appeared to be largely unaffected.

It was the latest headache for travelers in the U.S., who faced an even larger number of daily flight cancellations over the Christmas holiday due to a severe winter storm and a breakdown in crew-scheduling technology at Southwest Airlines.

More than 1,100 U.S. flights were canceled and nearly 8,000 flights were delayed as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the tracking site FlightAware.

Even though the Federal Aviation Administration was at fault for the outage, airlines will be on the hook for refunds and other compensation. Kurt Ebenhoch, a consumer travel advocate and former airline executive, said passengers are entitled to a full refund if an airline cancels a flight for any reason.

Staying calm __ and knowing your rights __ can go a long way if your flight plans are disrupted, experts say. Here’s some of their advice for dealing with a flight delay or cancellation:

My flight was canceled. What next?

If you still want to get to your destination, most airlines will rebook you for free on the next available flight as long as it has seats, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Major airlines including Delta, American, Southwest and United were waiving change fees for Wednesday flights __ and, in some cases, Thursday flights __ to make it easier for passengers to change their travel plans.

If you want to cancel the trip, you are entitled to a full refund, even if you bought non-refundable tickets. You’re also entitled to a refund of any bag fees, seat upgrades or other extras.

Ebenhoch stressed that travelers are eligible for a refund, not just vouchers for future travel. If you do take a voucher, make sure you inquire about blackout dates and other restrictions on its use.

My flight was delayed. Does the airline have to provide me with compensation?

No. There are no federal laws requiring airlines to provide passengers with meal vouchers or other compensation when their flights are delayed. But each airline has its own policy, so if you are experiencing a long delay, you should ask if you can get a meal voucher or a hotel room. In some cases airlines might offer you a discounted hotel rate.

My flight was delayed for so long that I no longer want to make the trip. Can I get a refund?

Maybe. The U.S. Department of Transportation says travelers are entitled to a refund if there is a “significant delay.” It does not define “significant,” so airlines have their own standards. Delta will refund a flight that was delayed by more than two hours, for example, while American will refund a flight that was delayed by more than four hours.

Can I ask to be booked on another airline’s flight?

Yes. Airlines aren’t required to put you on another airline’s flight, but they can and sometimes do, according to the DOT. Jeff Klee, CEO of CheapAir.com, recommends researching alternate flights while you’re waiting to talk to an agent. Agents are typically under a lot of pressure when a flight is canceled, so giving them some options helps.

Ebenhoch also suggests looking for alternative airports that are close to your original destination.

I’m facing a long wait to rebook my flight. What should I do?

If someone in your traveling party is at a higher level in a frequent flier program, use the number reserved for that level to call the airline, Ebenhoch said. You can also try calling an international help desk for the airline, since those agents have the ability to make changes.

Read More

FAA Jan 11, 2023

Flight Delays, Cancellations Pile Up After FAA System Outage Grounded US Planes

Jan 11, 2023

FAA System Outage Disrupts Thousands of Flights Across U.S.

The outage of the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions System grounded departures around the country, delaying hundreds of flights, with scores more expected to be impacted throughout the day.

Air traffic operations gradually resumed after 9.am. ET when an FAA ground stop ordering a pause on domestic departures had been lifted for all airlines. Late Wednesday, the FAA released a statement saying “preliminary work has traced the outage to a damaged database file.”

“At this time,” the statement continued, ” there is no evidence of a cyber attack.”

The pause caused widespread disruptions as all aircrafts are required to route through the system, including commercial and military flights. Flight delays quickly cascaded, with more than 9,000 flights within, into or out of the United States delayed as of Wednesday evening, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. Over 1,300 flights were also cancelled.

“We are going to see the ripple effects from that, this morning’s delays through the system during the day,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in an interview on CNN. “Now we have to understand how this could have happened in the first place. Why the usual redundancies that would stop it from being that disruptive did not stop it from being disruptive this time.”

The Associated Press reported that more than 21,000 flights were scheduled to take off in the U.S. on Wednesday, and 1,840 international flights were expected to fly into the U.S.

Airports in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta were seeing between 30% and 40% of flights delayed.

The Notice to Air Missions System, also known as NOTAMs, used to be available through a hotline but that was phased out with the internet. The alerts span from mundane information about construction at airports to urgent flight restrictions or broken equipment.

When NOTAM’s system initially failed on Tuesday evening at around 8:28 p.m., the FAA resorted back to the telephone hotlines to keep departures overnight flying. However, as daytime traffic picked up Wednesday morning, it overwhelmed the backup system and forced the grounding of flights.

A spokesman for the U.S. military’s Air Mobility Command said they had not been impacted by the outage. Air Mobility Command is responsible for all the troop movement and supply flights, such as the C-17s that carry the president’s motorcade vehicles when he travels, but also all the flights that transport troops from one base to another.

President Joe Biden addressed the FAA issue Wednesday before leaving the White House to accompany his wife to a medical procedure at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside of Washington. He said he was briefed by Buttigieg, who told him they still had not identified what went wrong. Asked by reporters if he thought it was a cyberattack, Biden said “we don’t know,” but that he had ordered the Department of Transportation to investigate.

Buttigieg told MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that while there doesn’t seem to be any indication of “nefarious” activity from domestic or foreign actors, the agency isn’t “ruling it out.”

“The FBI has spoken to that and the FAA is looking closely at that as well, as they work to see exactly what was going on inside the files that were in this system leading to this irregularity,” Buttigieg said. “There is no direct indication of any external or nefarious activity, but we are not yet prepared to rule that out.”

European flights into the U.S. appeared to be largely unaffected.

The Paris airports’ press office confirmed to NBC News early Wednesday that all American Airlines flights bound for the U.S. had been delayed. However, Air France said their U.S.-bound flights were not impacted by the outage and departed as planned.

Irish carrier Aer Lingus said services to the U.S. continue, and Dublin Airport’s website showed that its flights to Newark, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles were running on schedule.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating what caused the 6 to 7 pound metal sleeve to fall, according to Maine’s Bureau of Capitol Police, but it appears to be from a wing flap of a large passenger jet flying over the state from abroad.

No one was hurt when the sleeve-like object smashed into the ground outside the main entrance of the Capitol Friday at about 12:30 p.m., police said. But Craig Donahue, a screener at the building, was walking in about 7 feet away from where the part fell.

“It definitely shocked him,” Capitol Police Chief Matthew Clancy said. “He was walking back to the building and got quite a wakeup call.”

“That could’ve hit anybody,” said Maine Capitol Police screener Craig Donahue, who witnessed the object hit the ground and roll toward him.

Donahue brought the piece, which he says was not hot to touch right after it fell, into the State House.

That prompted a call to nearby Augusta State Airport and the subsequent notification to the FAA.

“The FAA has launched an investigation while attempting to locate the source of the part which is likely from a large airliner on an international route,” police said in a statement. “The FAA made awareness notifications to flights that were over the Capitol area at the time. The source remains unknown and under FAA investigation.”

Asked if he feels lucky that he avoided getting struck, Donahue said, “I do, a little bit.”

“People are like, ‘You should go buy scratch tickets or go buy a lottery ticket,'” Donahue explained. “Why? My luck was not getting hit.”

Although he appreciates the hard hat given to him by his coworkers, Donahue also told NECN and NBC10 Boston that he would really like the mystery of where the part actually came from to be solved.

“Hopefully we get an answer soon,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More Airplane news

North Carolina Jul 31, 2022

Co-Pilot Dead After Fall or Jump From Small Plane Making Emergency Landing