Plane Strikes Deer

It’s not uncommon for a plane to hit a bird in midflight, but for a plane to hit a deer? Now, that’s nearly unheard of. Today, in Charlotte, North Carolina that’s exactly what happened.
An American Airline flight strikes a deer during takeoff and makes an emergency landing, giving passengers heading toward Gulfport quite the scare.
“I was holding my husband’s hand and just hoping that we were going to make it. What else could I do?” Virginia Kelly and 43 other passengers aboard the American Airlines flight 5320 were relieved to finally touchdown in Gulfport Wednesday afternoon, even if it was five hours later than expected.
During takeoff from the Charlotte Douglas International Airport, passengers say they heard the frightening boom. Passenger Antonio Bucca said, “It literally sounded like we may have popped a tire or hit a pot hole or something.”
Bucca says the pilot immediately notified passengers that they struck a deer on the runway and would be forced to turn around and make an emergency landing. Before they did, the FAA did a drive by to assess the damage, really making Kelly uneasy. “When we scooped down near the ground and went back up, I really thought we were gone.”
Passengers say about five minutes after takeoff the plane finally landed, but they knew they weren’t out of the woods just yet. Passenger Terry Corgan said, “They immediately told us to get off the plane, evacuate. Don’t take anything with us, just get off the plane. Fire trucks came and they put all the foam on the plane and apparently we had a big leak and the wing was smashed up pretty good.”
Everyone was safe. American Airlines released a statement saying there was a fuel leak and damage to one of the right front wing flaps of the CRJ-700 jet and all passengers would be able to board a new aircraft and be back on their way.
Terry Corgan, who was flying to Gulfport for work, didn’t seem too upset that he missed his conference, but he did have one question. “I don’t know how the deer got on the runway. That I would like to know, I’d like to find that out.”