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Emergency slide falls off United Airlines plane on approach to O’Hare International Airport

Emergency slide falls FILE PHOTO: An emergency slide from a United Airlines flight fell as the plane approached O'Hare International Airport. (Rafael_Wiedenmeier/Getty Images)

A Chicago-area neighborhood had quite a surprise on Monday.

What looked like a deflated bounce house or pool piled up on a sidewalk was in reality an emergency slide from an airplane.

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A United Airlines flight from Zurich was approaching Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Monday afternoon when the slide fell from the Boeing 767, WLS reported.

WBBM reported that 155 people and 10 crewmembers were on the flight.

Video captured it floating from the sky and eventually landing on a house, damaging a downspout, shingles and a window screen.

The home’s owner, Patrick Devitt, said his son and father-in-law were having lunch in the kitchen when they heard a “boom” at about 12:15 p.m. Devitt was on his way home from work at the time.

Luckily, no one was hurt.

Devitt said he dragged the slide from the backyard to the front, adding that it is larger than a small car.

He called 911 but they were a bit skeptical that he had a piece of airplane equipment in his yard, WBBM reported.

“The lady that we spoke to at the Department of Aviation had said to us, ‘Well how do you know it’s from an airplane?’” Devitt said according to WBBM. “‘Well, because there’s a giant slide in our backyard that’s bigger than a car, ma’am. Of course, it’s from an airplane.’”

WLS said that within 30 minutes, officials with the Federal Aviation Administration were at his home. The FAA said that a maintenance crew discovered that a flight that had landed safely from Switzerland had a missing emergency slide.

By Monday afternoon, two people from the airline had come to Devitt’s home to retrieve the slide.

United is trying to find out how the slide came off the plane.

This isn’t the first time a 767 has lost a slide. It happened in Boston in 2019, CNN reported. In that case, a door was not closed correctly and caused the slide to fall, WBBM reported.

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