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.

Comments

[Sansculotte]

02:56 PM on 09/15/2011

Why would a problem with a engine prompt the pilot to call for an evacuation?

[Sansculotte]

02:53 PM on 09/15/2011

The only weird thing here is - Why are United passengers in the Admiral's Club?

[nwalibran]

10:00 AM on 09/15/2011

Probably the most excitement she's had in god knows how long......

[peach1436]

07:23 AM on 09/15/2011

Did you look at the photo? She will probably sue.

[lilliefaerie]

03:52 AM on 09/15/2011

Good, they deplaned and were ruffled but not badly harmed. Using those shutes at 78.

[giftsthatpurr]

02:55 AM on 09/15/2011

Well, well - all the little boys are out in force making sure to talk about a woman's "looks" (of course in a coarse, vulgar way) with nothing that shows any intelligence or decency. Why don't you little guys go play somewhere else and leave the comments to the grown-ups? run along now.............

[Beginner]

12:24 AM on 09/15/2011

For a lady in her 70's with health issues not to have been injured, Ruth Bader Ginsberg managed to evacuate with flying colors. It must have been a good change of pace for her, I'm sure, away from the mundance duties of a supreme court justice.

[sportster777]

09:49 PM on 09/14/2011

wow she is scary looking..no wonder the engine broke down

[forpeace]

10:00 PM on 09/14/2011

sportster777
---------------

She is NOT as scary as T e a Party candidates!!

[forpeace]

10:07 PM on 09/14/2011

or the supporters, like yourself!

[peach1436]

07:23 AM on 09/15/2011

She is about as scary looking as your avatar.

[giftsthatpurr]

02:50 AM on 09/15/2011

Now was that really necessary?

[smburwick]

08:09 PM on 09/14/2011

Very bad taste in post.

[forpeace]

10:02 PM on 09/14/2011

johndgomezgo
---------------

What an !d!0tic comment, seriously!

[Rainey Allen]

08:07 PM on 09/14/2011

They used this story to take up space. Why is this news? There are more important things going on to be reported on.

[forpeace]

10:02 PM on 09/14/2011

Rainey Allen
---------------

But you are still here to post, right?

[Tommy T-]

06:44 PM on 09/14/2011

I wonder if the Justice got stripsearched and groped up by TSA employees. Maybe it would help her with the Constitutionality of what the TSA does in the name of public safety.

[MIKEinNYC]

06:03 PM on 09/14/2011

She's lucky she didn't break a hip.

[sportster777]

09:44 PM on 09/14/2011

NO CHANCE HER BREAKING HER HIP..SHE IS SO FULL OF HOT AIR....

[forpeace]

10:03 PM on 09/14/2011

sportster777
--------------

How childish of you?

How old are you? 5?

[Stephen Thorpe]

05:54 PM on 09/14/2011

She didn't take the slide did she?

[smburwick]

08:10 PM on 09/14/2011

yes she did.

[Stephen Thorpe]

09:46 PM on 09/14/2011

I love her now.

[centsable]

05:46 PM on 09/14/2011

What was the problem with the engine...was it on fire, was it smoking, or like my car transmission, just making a funny sound?

[Decipherer]

05:44 PM on 09/14/2011

How exactly do you evacuate an airplane "in Dulles"? What is wrong with you headline writers anyway?

[ljroberts1]

07:45 PM on 09/14/2011

Dulles is one of the airports in the DC area as well as DCA international.

[Decipherer]

07:24 AM on 09/15/2011

Thank you, Dr. Obvious, but you missed my point which was the use of the word "in" as opposed to the more appropriate word "at."

And it is not DCA international, by the way. People who live in the area call the airport "Washington National," not the other name given to it to "honor" a certain dead president who crushed the air traffic controllers union.

[ladysalieri]

07:50 PM on 09/14/2011

It's also the name of the town where Dulles Airport is located (Dulles, VA).

[Decipherer]

07:26 AM on 09/15/2011

The airport was there first, m'lady, and was for some reason named after John Foster Dulles, President Eisenhower's secretary of state.

The name of the town (such as it is) came later, and in either case, the passengers were evacuated from the plane "at" Dulles airport, not "in" Dulles anything, OK?