- A pilot taxiing a nearby plane alerted the pilot of Delta Flight 982 that a wheel had popped off.
- "It just rolled off the runway behind you," the pilot said in audio obtained by CNN.
A Delta plane's front wheel popped off just as it was about to take off from Atlanta over the weekend — and it was the pilot of a nearby aircraft who first noticed the runaway wheel.
As Delta Air Lines Flight 982, a Boeing 757, was taxiing down the runway in preparation for takeoff on Saturday, a pilot taxiing another plane in the runway lineup radioed to the pilot of the faulty plane, according to audio of the incident obtained by CNN.
"Delta 982, this is the aircraft looking at you," the pilot of Delta Flight 1783, who was taxiing directly behind Flight 982, said in the audio obtained by CNN. "One of your nose tires just came off. It just rolled off the runway behind you."
"Hey, thanks for that," the pilot of Flight 982 responded to the fellow pilot before alerting air traffic control, according to CNN. "Tower, sounds like we got a problem."
The Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday that the tire had detached from the plane and "rolled down the hill." The FAA said in its incident report that there were 184 passengers on board, but a Delta spokesperson told Business Insider that there were just 172 passengers on board.
The Delta Spokesperson said that all 172 passengers were taken off the plane and transferred to another aircraft.
The plane's wheel was replaced and put back into service the next day, the Delta spokesperson added.
The specific Boeing 757 aircraft involved in this incident was first delivered in 1992, the Delta spokesperson said, adding that the cause of this incident is still being investigated.
Boeing stopped delivering 757 models in 2004, a Boeing spokesperson told BI.
The incident follows a number of plane mishaps so far this year, including a door plug flying off an Alaska Airlines plane mid-flight, which prompted the FAA to ground all Boeing 737 Max 9 planes with door plugs.
In another incident, a Virgin Atlantic flight was canceled after a passenger noticed some bolts missing on the plane's wing, though a Virgin spokesperson told BI that the bolts were not necessary for the plane's safety.