United Flight Carrying Justice Ginsburg Evacuated In Dulles

A San Francisco-bound United Airlines flight was evacuated while on the taxiway at Dulles airport on Wednesday after the pilot noticed something wrong with the engine, CBS News reports.

Flight 586 was on the taxiway around 1pm when the pilot noticed the issue and decided to evacuate the plane. Passengers, including 78-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, used emergency chutes to exit the plane.

Jodi Gersh, Gannett's director of social media, was onboard the flight and tweeted away through the whole episode. Gersh reported passengers experienced injuries while evacuating the plane, including broken bones (she received some cuts on her hands, check out pic here). According to Gersh's latest tweets, passengers are calming down nicely with drinks in Dulles' Admirals Club.

Tara Hamilton, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, told Reuters that the passengers have, in fact, been taken back to one of the concourses at Dulles.

Hamilton also told Reuters that there are three injuries from the evacuation: Two refused treatment and one person was taken to a local hospital for non-life threatening injuries. United spokesman Mike Trevino told the the Associated Press that one person was injured, but did not provide further details.

Supreme Court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe Estrada told the Washington Post that Ginsburg was headed to an appearance on Thursday at the Hastings College of Law in San Francisco.

Photo: Jodi Gersh

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly located Hastings College of Law in Berkeley. It is in San Francisco.