CHICHESTER, ENGLAND – JULY 01: A general view of fireworks during the Goodwood Festival of Speed at Goodwood on July 1, 2017 in Chichester, England. (Photo by James Bearne/Getty Images)

An errant shell that misfired during a July 4 fireworks celebration in downtown Nashville detonated in the upper deck of Nissan Stadium on Tuesday night. And no, Jason Pierre-Paul had nothing to do with it.

Fortunately, the city had planned for this. Nissan Stadium was included in the fallout zone for the celebration, so the stadium was empty and no one was injured in the explosion.

You can see see the section that has been marked off by caution tape in this photo from WKRN:

Nissan Stadium fireworks explosion

Although we’re still a more than a month out from the Titans’ first preseason home game, Nissan Stadium is scheduled to host the U.S. Men’s National Team’s Gold Cup match against Panama on Saturday. It appears the explosion won’t affect that event. According to the Sporting News, the stadium did not sell any seats in the damaged section for the USMNT game.

Here’s a statement on the situation from the Nashville Metro Sports Authority, via Titan Insider:

“Basically, a shell misfired and caused some damage. We are waiting for a structural engineering company to come in,” said Monica Fawknotson, director of the Metro Sports Authority. “They will be on site tomorrow and assess the damage and get back to us.

“Thankfully, nobody was hurt. I don’t think this is going to interrupt any events at the stadium.”

Whatever the damage comes out to, Pyro Shows, which put on the fireworks show, will be responsible for the costs. Here’s their explanation for what went wrong with the misfired shell in a not-too-uncommon incident:

“It took place toward the end of the show,” said Lansden Hill, owner of Pyro Shows, which has been doing the fireworks show in Nashville for three decades. “The shells are supposed to go off in the air, but this one came back down and didn’t go off until it landed in the upper deck.

“It was just one of those things that will occasionally happen. That’s why the fire code requires that we keep the crowd a certain area away from it. We know out of every 1,000 shells not all of them are going to work right.”

(Editor’s Note: Uh, that a less than comforting statistic.)

[Titan Insider]

About Jesse Kramer

Jesse is a writer and editor for The Comeback. He has also worked for SI.com and runs The Catch and Shoot, a college basketball website based in Chicago. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow Jesse on Twitter @Jesse_Kramer.