A Thaxted woman was lucky to escape injury when the tail flap of a cargo plane plunged into her garden.

Helen Radford, of Wedow Road, had fortunately parked her £20,000 Astra convertible car on the road last Wednesday night when the five by two foot chunk of plane flap landed on her drive.

The flap, from a Federal Express cargo plane scattered metal washers and plastic pieces all over the street.

She said: "The flap bounced on the road and ricocheted with such an impact that it travelled 15 to 20 feet into my drive."If my car had been there it would have landed on it and I would have been in serious danger."

A neighbour reported the incident to BAA Stansted and Mrs Radford said a team was soon despatched to Thaxted to clear up the debris.

Cliff Morley, public and media relations spokesman for Federal Express, Stansted immediately confirmed the tail flap came from one of their MD11 cargo flights, which was travelling from Paris to Stansted.

He said: "Federal Express would like to confirm an incident that occurred in the Stansted area on January 15 at 8.35 pm.

"We are currently working with the Air Accidents Investiga-tion Branch to investigate the situation.

''The plane will be grounded for however long it takes to investigate what happened, how it happened and make sure it never happens again"

Mr Morley said Federal Express transports three to four million packages every day globally and always makes very thorough checks in its aircraft

Published Friday, January 24, 2003

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