A shocking video posted by an aviation blog on Twitter shows the moment a main landing gear wheel separated from the Boeing Dreamlifter aircraft, fell to the ground, and bounced off.
A terrifying footage of a 100kg plane wheel falling to the ground from a 180-tonne cargo aircraft during take-off has emerged on social media. Reportedly, this incident took place in southern Italy on Tuesday morning.
The BoardingPass shared this video on Twitter with the details about the incident in the caption. In the video, a black path of smoke emerges from the 747-400 Dreamlifter's undercarriage, and a wheel, like a giant object, flies to the runway and bounces away. Luckily, nobody was injured on the ground as the wheel fell from the sky.
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The Boeing 747 Dreamlifter, operated by Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings Inc., continued with its travel and landed safely without any major mishap about 11 hours later at a Boeing production facility in Charleston, South Carolina.
Un Boeing 747 Dreamlifter operat de Atlas Air (N718BA) care a decolat marți dimineață (11OCT22) din Taranto (IT) spre Charleston (SUA) a pierdut o roată a trenului principal de aterizare în timpul decolării.
Avionul operează zborul și transportă componente de Dreamliner. pic.twitter.com/R95UHkLD7V
According to sources, the wheel weighed around 100 kilograms and was one of the 18 discovered in the Boeing Dreamlifter. It was located near the vineyard in an Italian airport. The pictures of the wheel also surfaced on the Internet but could not be ascertained.
However, little information is available about the accident and what caused the tire to separate from the gear's bogey. The Boeing 747 Dreamlifter was not licenced to take passengers besides the crew.
The Dreamlifter is a converted Boeing 747 jet designed in the early 2000s to transport the components for Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner between continents.
Boeing confirmed the happening in a statement and declared the flight had landed safely on 11 October. Also, the spokesperson stated that the company would support Atlas Air's investigation. Atlas Air has yet to respond to the comment.
After being shared online, the video accumulated over 172K views and 442 retweets. Social media users expressed mixed opinions in the comments section. Take a look.
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