Northwest jet nose cone dented during flight

The nose of a Northwest Airlines jet was struck by an unidentified object as the aircraft was descending prior to its arrival at the Tampa, Florida airport. The jet landed safely, and no injuries were reported.

Shortly after the aircraft landed in Tampa, Northwest Airlines officials began their examination of the dented nose cone on the Boeing 757 that was damaged during a flight from Detroit to Tampa.

Photos taken by passengers after the aircraft landed shows a clearly damaged nose tip, which looked like a plastic cup that had been smashed.

In the beginning, a Tampa airport spokesperson told the Associated Press that the damaged had been caused by a bird flying into the plane, but that cause was ruled out by officials of the Federal Aviation Administration after initial inspection of the damage.

An FAA spokesperson in Atlanta said that the jet’s pilots heard a loud noise when the aircraft was flying at around 18,000 feet, during its descent into the Tampa area.

The radar stopped functioning, which prompted the cockpit crew to suspect that there was a problem with the nose cone’s fiberglass cover, known as a radome.

The pilots reduced the jet’s speed and notified Tampa air traffic control, but did not go as far as declaring an emergency, she added. The plane was carrying 182 passengers, and landed safely.

Once the aircraft had landed, air traffic controllers noticed the dent and informed the pilots. The pilots said that they did not see a bird and that the jet’s altitude at the time of the incident was higher than most birds fly.

www.faa.gov