Jet Carrying Morgan Freeman Blows Tire, Diverts For Landing

A jet carrying actor and pilot Morgan Freeman made an emergency landing in Mississippi Saturday after blowing a tire during takeoff. Neither Freeman nor his pilot were injured when the SJ30 SyberJet landed at the Tunica airport and ran off the runway, according to an Associated Press report. The two men were the only ones on board the rare six-passenger SJ30, which had departed Clarksdale in northwestern Mississippi.

Freeman, 78, said in a statement he was bound for Texas to shoot a TV series. "Sometimes things don't go as planned and a tire blew on takeoff, which caused other problems,"he said. "But thanks to my excellent pilot Jimmy Hobson we landed safely without a scratch … I cannot say the same about my plane." The FAA is investigating the incident. An agency spokeswoman told the AP the aircraft went off the runway in Tunica when the gear collapsed.