Metal Shards Rain Down From Dreamliner Taking Off: 'Storm Of Steel And Iron'

No, it wasn't a new power from your favorite super hero that residents of Rome recently saw. Rather, it was debris from a Boeing 787 Dreamliner that sprayed “bullets” of metal shortly after it took off from Rome.

Independent reported that people residing under the plane's flight path were bombarded by “hundreds of eight-foot inch chunks” of metal and steel when the Norwegian-owned jet departed the Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport. One witness described it to be like a “storm” of shrapnel.

“I screamed and ran into the house,” said the resident in an interview.

Another person complained to have suffered burns during the incident, and, at some point, his shirt caught fire. But it wasn't only the residents who became the casualties: parked vehicles, garden sheds and homes along the Isla Sacra area embraced the metal hail.

Preliminary investigation suggested that the Dreamliner abandoned its initial flight plan to Los Angeles. It added that the plane circled the Tyrrhenian Sea twice and returned to its original destination in the process.

In addition, the metal debris that fell from the sky were believed to have came from the plane's left engine. A Norwegian representative “simply said” that the plane had “indications of a technical failure,” but the pilot was able to land the Dreamliner safely.

The extent of the problems or the risk of the 298 passengers onboard the Boeing 787 Dreamliner during that instance are still being questioned, added the source.

Meanwhile, Fiumicino Mayor Esterino Montino took to social media and detailed what had happened. He wrote on Facebook that it was “around 4:40PM last Saturday” that the aircraft suffered a breakdown and had to return to the Leonardo da Vinci airport. It was then that during its course that the aircraft “lost metal pieces that feel at great speed to the ground.”

In other news, another Norwegian Dreamliner hit a fence while moving from its departure gate at Gatwick.

The aircraft was supposed to depart for New York, the source claimed.

It added that the Dreamliner collided with a fence while it was being pushed ahead of flight D1707. In turn, the collision damaged a cone which contained the “auxilliary power unit at its rear.”

Passengers of the derailed aircraft was told to disembark and were transferred to a replacement plane, while the damaged craft was decommissoned.

Norwegian apologized for the inconvenience through its spokesman.