TOKYO
A panel weighing three kilograms fell from a plane onto a factory near Tokyo, Japanese officials said Thursday, the country's second case in a week after a similar part landed on a car.
No injuries were reported after the panel was discovered inside the factory near Narita Airport in Chiba Prefecture, a spokesman for All Nippon Airways told AFP.
"After consulting with a panel manufacturer, we identified that the panel was one that fell from our plane," a Boeing 767 flying from the southeastern Chinese city of Amoi, said the spokesman, Hiroyuki Miyagawa.
The panel was used as a cover for the emergency slide and ANA said a faulty bottle containing nitrogen gas was to blame.
The nitrogen is used to blow the panel off the plane, allowing the slide to deploy in an emergency but the bottle leaked, the spokesman said, adding it had since been replaced, and apologising.
HPG blows a panel for the slide off the side of the ac, and no one is aware of it? After calling Boeing, Oh hey, look, that was from one of our planes? Walking around the ac, no one notices a piece that big missing with a big yellow cargo slide showing?