Piece of airplane’s tail falls off

MELVILLE, N.Y. — It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Well, it’s part of a plane.

An engine tail-cone cover hurtled off a Tokyo-bound Delta jet and through the sky, landing on a family’s lawn Thursday in Roosevelt, N.Y., authorities said.

No one was hurt Thursday when the cone-shaped object came flying off Flight 799, which had taken off moments earlier from John F. Kennedy Airport about 10 miles away.

Only when the Boeing 777 twin-engine plane was undergoing routine ground inspection the next day at its Tokyo destination did personnel notice that the 3-foot-by-4-foot, 20-pound engine tail cone was missing, said Arlene Salac, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

The cone wasn’t needed for the plane to fly safely, and none of the 206 passengers or the crew aboard the 14-hour flight apparently detected that the part had gone missing, authorities said.

The cone was a big surprise for the Russell family. They came home Thursday evening from a doctor’s appointment to find the metallic object in the driveway and broken branches scattered everywhere, said Michelle Russell, a New York City schoolteacher who lives with husband James Russell, a firefighter, and their kindergarten-age daughter.