Oprah jet mishap: Not a bird after all

Fire official now says it was wear and tear on the windshield

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updated 11:34 a.m. ET Dec. 28, 2005

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Officials now say that it was wear and tear, and not a collision with a bird, that damaged the windshield of Oprah Winfrey’s private jet and forced it to return to the city airport.

“There was no bird involved, but the pilot did tell my captain that he felt it was a fatigue thing with the glass,” Battalion Chief John Ahlman, a Santa Barbara City Fire Department spokesman, said Tuesday.

Ahlman had earlier attributed the damage to a bird.

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Winfrey, host of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” and her boyfriend, Stedman Graham, weren’t hurt in Monday’s incident, which occurred just after the jet had taken off from Santa Barbara Municipal Airport.

The 51-year-old talk-show host bought a mansion on 42 acres of land in the hills of Montecito five years ago.