ASSOCIATED PRESS This photo provided by police in Inver Grove Heights, Minn., shows a thrust reverser nozzle that fell Saturday off a Northwest Airlines jet bound for Honolulu. The part fell off near Minneapolis. The flight crew did not notice that the cone-shaped engine part was missing until the DC-10 had landed. No one was injured.

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Isle-bound jet
drops part

A 200-pound nozzle from an engine
falls outside Minneapolis

MINNEAPOLIS » An engine part on a Northwest Airlines jet bound for Hawaii fell off the aircraft and landed in a Dakota County field, the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed yesterday.

Elizabeth Isham Cory, a spokeswoman for the FAA, said Flight 97 left Saturday from Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport bound for Honolulu. The flight crew did not notice that the cone-shaped engine part -- called a thrust reverser nozzle -- was missing until the DC-10 had landed, she said.

No one was injured. The thrust reverser helps to slow a plane when it comes in for a landing. The landing in Honolulu was routine, Isham Cory said. She referred to the engine part that fell off the tail of the aircraft as an "extra mechanism" that was not being used in the flight.

The Dakota County sheriff notified the FAA after a resident who saw the piece fall to the ground called Inver Grove Heights police, she said. The FAA later retrieved the engine part, which weighed about 200 pounds.

Sgt. Greg Olson of the Inver Grove Heights Police Department said the engine part landed about the length of a football field from a home in a developing area. An anonymous caller notified police around 3:45 p.m., he said.

Inver Grove Heights is just a few miles to the east of the airport. Olson said he believes jets were taking off in that direction Saturday and flying over the city.

"This is very rare," Isham Cory said. "We are trying to decide how it happened, why it happened and what steps can be taken to prevent it from happening on another plane."

She said the investigation would take weeks.

In an e-mailed statement, Northwest said the airline and the FAA are investigating: "As such, it would be inappropriate for us to comment on this matter. However, outsourced maintenance and in-house maintenance have the same quality standards."

Northwest, which is in contract talks with its mechanics, has the right to outsource up to 38 percent of its airplane maintenance. It was not clear whether this part was involved in outsourced work. Last month, the president of the Twin Cities mechanics union at Northwest Airlines was suspended for questioning the safety of outsourced aircraft repairs.