SI

Panthers Flight Home From Preseason Game Went Off Taxiway, All Passengers Safe

The plane landed safely, sliding off a taxiway.

Josh Wilson

Delta Airlines flight carrying the Panthers slid off a taxiway
Delta Airlines flight carrying the Panthers slid off a taxiway / Queen City News
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After returning from the New England area early Friday morning following a preseason game, the aircraft the Carolina Panthers were traveling on slid off a taxiway at Charlotte Douglas International Airport.

All passengers (188) are reportedly safe with no injuries, and the plane slid off after it had landed and exited the runway, going off-course on a taxiway. Its landing gear got stuck in the mud, according to NBC affiliate in Charlotte WCNC. The FAA is expected to investigate, and Delta apologized for the inconvenience.

The news was first reported by Julian Sadur of Queen City News.

The flight departed the Providence airport at 12:45 a.m. and arrived in Charlotte at 2:41 a.m. It landed on runway 36R and turned to taxi on taxiway M. Flight tracking data—which could be slightly inaccurate—appears to show the plane going off-course as it attempted to turn from taxiway M to D.

The aircraft was a Boeing 767-332 operated by Delta Airlines as flight number DL8860, a number normally indicative of a charter flight, not a commercially ticketed flight. The aircraft has been in service since 1992, and previously had two hydraulic failures (2016 in Madrid, 2018 in New York) and an incident with a tire bursting upon takeoff during the 2016 hydraulic incident.

Earlier on Thursday night, the aircraft flew from Atlanta to Providence to position for the flight back to Charlotte.

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Josh Wilson
JOSH WILSON

Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.

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