Jenny McCarthy Shares Her Gratitude After Donnie Wahlberg’s Plane Skids Off the Runway in Las Vegas & Everyone Walks Away Safe

Oct 26, 2026 by apost team

On Saturday night, October 17, Donnie Wahlberg performed with New Kids on the Block at Dolby Live at Park MGM in Las Vegas — the final show of the band’s “The Right Stuff” residency. The next morning, he boarded a private jet to leave.

The plane never made it off the ground.

Wahlberg, 57, shared a video account of what happened at Harry Reid International Airport on Sunday, October 18. “We were taking off and didn’t get up in the air and ran out of runway,” he said. The aircraft veered off runway 1L, narrowly missed heavy airport vehicles, equipment, and dumpsters, and came to a stop when it hit the perimeter fence. There were eight people on board — Wahlberg and his team. Everyone walked away unhurt.

“We’re all okay. I’m okay,” he said in the video. He credited the pilots directly. “These pilots saved our lives and God covered us.”

Harry Reid International Airport confirmed the incident in an official statement: “At approximately 11 a.m., upon departure, a general aviation aircraft skid off runway 1L at LAS and made contact with the perimeter fence.” Emergency personnel responded immediately.

Wahlberg subsequently shared a photograph from inside the plane — himself and the three pilots huddled together in prayer. He captioned it: “His love is eternal.” He thanked the emergency personnel for being “absolutely wonderful.”

His wife Jenny McCarthy, 53, responded in the comments with four words and a string of emojis. “God is so good!!!!” She added prayer hands and red hearts. In the days that followed, she expanded on that gratitude — and what it meant to receive a phone call from her husband moments after the plane came to a stop.

McCarthy told PEOPLE that Wahlberg called her almost immediately after the incident. “I got the call and I just started crying,” she said. “I just kept saying thank you, thank you, thank you.” She described the moment as a profound reminder of how quickly everything can change. “You realize in a split second, and I’ve always known this, how precious life is.”

The timing carried its own layer of context. The couple had recently sold their long-time Illinois home and relocated to Las Vegas to be closer to the residency — a move intended to simplify their life after years of long-distance touring. They had just finished unpacking, in a sense, when the incident happened.

Las Vegas is now their base. New Kids on the Block — Wahlberg, Joey McIntyre, Danny Wood, Jordan Knight, and Jonathan Knight — have not announced what comes next following the residency’s conclusion. For Wahlberg, whatever it is will begin from a city he nearly left permanently on a Sunday morning in October.

McCarthy, for her part, described being on the other end of the phone when her husband called to say he was safe as “one of the most grateful moments of my life.” She has spoken throughout their marriage about the centrality of faith to both of their lives. The “God is so good” in the comments was not a performance. It was the only thing she had.

The plane hit the fence. Everyone walked away. She cried. He prayed. They are both, by every account, deeply grateful for the morning they almost did not have.

apost.com

Are you a fan of Donnie Wahlberg and Jenny McCarthy? Do you think their response to this frightening incident is a reminder of what matters most? Let us know in the comments and pass this on to your family, friends, and other fans out there!