5 Foot of 'wing' missing?

[Final, 3 Greens]

Our local radio station (god bless them) reported this morning that "5 feet of wing" had returned ot terra firma somewhere near STN. (Didn't hear quite where.)

I presume that this was a panel or length of flap or something similar, but wondered if anyone knew anymore?

[Memetic]

From the Telegraph online:

Plane loses piece

The Civil Aviation Authority launched an inquiry after a metal flap from a Federal Express plane's wing fell off and landed in a garden at Thaxted, Essex, as the aircraft, flying from Paris, approached Stansted. The airport said it measured 5ft by 2ft.


I think the paper version had a bit more detail as to the location.

[lomapaseo]

It would be helpful to consider the area percentage loss when reading about these news bits. Initially I was horrified at the thred title having considered a small C172 .

On the other hand, a six inch wide section of the same length from an MD11 landing flap would be of less concern to the avaitor.

[Flightmech]

This report is "kind of" correct. It was a 4' section of the LH Inboard flap vane assy from one of our MD11's inbound from CDG. Incident occured at approx 2045 on Wednesday 15th. Crew knew nothing of it until they retracted the flaps after landing, when remaining section of vane (due to missing stop assy) broke into some hyd lines and depleted the system. Aircraft was released for service on following Tuesday as it took a while to locate a new vane.

[Buster Hyman]

Were they searching in vane, flightmech??:D :D :) :( :rolleyes:


Sorry.

[Flightmech]

Buster, the BAA were certainly flapping around a bit!

Sorry, i'll get my coat.