PLANE FLIES FOR TWO HOURS WITH WING MISSING

And here I think it's a problem when I lose a fuel cap...

http://tinyurl.com/7jw5b

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PLANE FLIES FOR TWO HOURS WITH WING MISSING

09:30 - 19 August 2005
A Dozy (Ireland) pilot flew his plane for two hours before he noticed
that five-and-a-half feet of one wing had been torn off by a tree on
take-off. The Irish pilot told investigators he thought he had been
"struck by a little bird" on takeoff in his five-seater Cessna 210.

But despite two of the three passengers being top flight engineers on
their way to fix a Boeing 767, no one noticed that half the left wing,
containing one fuel tank, was missing. The unnamed pilot was forced to
make an emergency landing at Jersey International Airport two hours
later after he finally spotted the fuel gauge plummeting towards empty.

The drama unfolded as the Cessna took off from Brittas House Airstrip,
18 miles east of Shannon in Ireland last Friday.

As the small aircraft - bound for Lisbon in Portugal - left the runway
it collided with treetops which ripped off a 5ft 7ins section of the
left wing. The fuel tank was later found on the ground - back in
Ireland.

Jersey International Airport was alerted and air traffic controllers
guided the damaged plane to safety.

A spokesman for the airport said: "We were amazed it had managed to fly
as long as it had, it was in a real state when it came in.

"The pilot was the most shocked of us all as he had not realised the
extent of the damage while he was flying."