American jet sheds panel inflight; continues to Paris
Federal Officials are looking into an incident involving an American Airlines (Fort Worth) Boeing 767 that lost a panel from its belly section after taking off from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on its way to Paris. While flying over the Atlantic Ocean on April 20, the pilots heard a loud noise they thought was “cargo shifting". All of the people aboard the aircraft felt and heard noises as well. A flight attendant described it as “a loud shaking noise from the belly of the plane”. The noise was followed shortly by another one that “sounded like an explosion”. The jet continued its flight as if nothing had happened, but after the landing in Paris, the crew found out that a panel about two (2) feet by three (3) feet that was covering one of two air conditioners was missing. Upon the discovery, federal regulators initiated the investigation. American Airlines declined to comment on the matter. The airline’s flight department said the captain “did exactly what we want our captains to do. There was no way this crew could have known this panel had departed. If they had known, they obviously would have returned,” said Jim Kaiser, American’s manager of flight operations quality control, and Chuck Harman, the airline’s fleet captain for Boeing 757 and 767 planes.
