Access Door From Boeing 767 Falls in Garden City

A Nassau County Public Works employee working on the grounds of the Franklin Avenue courthouse Saturday heard something crash to the ground at approximately 4:55 p.m.

Curious, he walked to the rear steps of the courthouse to find what appeared to be an airplane hatch door lying on the ground.

Garden City and Nassau County police were notified and began a joint investigation with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

FAA spokesperson Jim Peters confirmed that the object was in fact a hydraulic service access door from an Alitalia Boeing 767 heading toward JFK Airport for landing.

Alitalia is the national airline for Italy. The airline started operations in 1947 as Aerolinee Italiane Internazionali, but it became better known as Alitalia. 

Measuring 1 foot by two feet and weighing four lbs, the airplane part apparently detached from the commercial airliner as it was flying over the Garden City/Mineola border.

"It came from the underbelly of the aircraft, located between the two main gears," Peters told Patch Wednesday. "It's unfortunate it came off but on the positive side no one was injured."

The missing part does not affect the controllability or safety of the aircraft, according to Peters. 

Immediately after the incident, Garden City police took possession of the door. It is now in the hands of FAA inspectors from the Garden City-based New York Flight Standards district office, who properly identified the falling part.

Peters said the FAA tracks all its aircraft going in and out of area airports. "Based on the location and time of day, and phone calls to Alitalia, we used radar data to narrow the search, or our inspectors did," he said. "We were able to track it down."

Peters said the investigation is essentially closed at this point and officials intend to turn the part over to the airline "at some point."

Parts do fall from aircraft from time to time, Peters added. "On the flip side of it, we've had parts that people believe have come from aircraft," he said. "But when we look into it further – for instance we had two episodes in New Jersey, one in south Jersey where metal came off a railroad train and another in Bergen where the part turned out to be from an industrial grinder."

(Editor's Note: Patch will update this article as more information on the incident becomes available, including how often parts actually detach from flying aircraft.)