Delta 727'S Engine Fails, Drops Part On Queens

NEW YORK - A Delta Airlines 727 made an emergency landing after it developed engine trouble, sending a sizzling hot piece of metal crashing into a man's driveway.

Bill Berry, a Delta spokesman, said Flight 801, which was headed to Tampa, Fla., landed safely at John F. Kennedy International Airport yesterday evening when one of its three engines lost power shortly after takeoff.

The airline had originally denied that the piece of metal found by Anthony Conti was from its plane, but Berry said today, "We have every reason to believe it came from that engine."

The Federal Aviation Administration was investigating.

Shortly after Delta Flight 801 took off from LaGuardia Airport for Tampa, Fla., about 7:20 p.m. yesterday with 132 passengers on board, the pilot saw that one engine had no power.

The pilot made an emergency landing at Kennedy Airport, on the other side of Queens.

Anthony Conti, who said he has worked as a crew chief at American Airlines for 20 years, said he heard a strange noise about 7:30 p.m. as a plane passed over his house. He said he saw a Delta logo on the plane and a piece of metal falling.

He said it was about a foot long and 6 inches wide and had "three blades from the engine, all chipped up and kind of burned."

"When it came down it was sizzling; it was boiling hot," he said.

Delta earlier had denied the piece could have come from the plane.

But Conti said, "It's kind of a big coincidence that a plane just passed over and then had to make an emergency landing five minutes after what happened to myself."