Boeing Fuselages Get Stuck in Montana River

Derailment tosses fuselages in water
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 7, 2014 2:57 AM CDT
Boeing Bodies Get Stuck in Montana River
This photo provided by Wiley E. Waters Whitewater Rafting shows part of a freight train that derailed near Alberton in western Montana.   (AP Photo/Wiley E. Waters Whitewater Rafting, Jerry Compton)

Rafters on Montana's Lower Clark Fork River are encountering an unusual sight as they round a bend: The fuselages of three Boeing 737 aircraft. The huge aircraft bodies and the train cars carrying them got stuck in the river last week when 19 freight cars derailed, the Missoulian reports. Crews hope to get the fuselages out of the river by tomorrow. The train was also carrying soybeans and denatured alcohol, but none of that ended up in the river.

The fuselages and other aircraft parts were on their way from a production facility in Kansas to a Boeing assembly plant in Washington state, but for now, they have become a tourist attraction along a popular rafting route. "It's kind of a surreal thing that comes around the corner. You would never expect it," the owner of a rafting company tells the New York Daily News. He says he has been getting plenty of calls from customers who want to see the aircraft parts before crews haul them away. "I think people are really anxious to see this unique thing that happened," he says. (More Boeing stories.)

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