Makes Safe Emergency Landing After Number Two Engine Fails

An American Airlines MD-83 made an emergency landing shortly after taking off from New York's LaGuardia Airport Wednesday morning, due to engine failure.

WCBS-2 reports Flight 309 was on climbout from LGA en route to Chicago O'Hare when the flight crew reported a loud bang, followed by the spooling down of the twin-engine aircraft's right engine. Online flight tracking data shows the MD-83 departing LGA to the northeast, then looping back towards New York.

The aircraft later made a safe emergency landing at Kennedy Airport at 8:36 am, about 20 minutes after taking off from LaGuardia.

As the plane's flight crew responded to the incident, debris from the engine rained down on the College Point section of Queens. "We heard a very, very loud sonic boom or explosion, followed immediately thereafter of about 30 to 45 seconds of debris raining down, everybody was quite alarmed," said one witness. "We immediately suspected it was a problem with a plane."

Reporters and FAA investigators found metal fragments, presumably from the aircraft, on the roof of a warehouse on 123rd Street. Those scraps were collected for analysis.

No one onboard the plane or on the ground was injured.

FMI: www.aa.com, www.faa.gov