The debris of a United Airlines plane fell into a suburb of Denver, Colorado, during an emergency landing on Saturday (20) when one of its engines failed and parts of the engine barely hit a house.
Officials said the plane landed safely and no one was injured on board or on the ground.
United Airlines plane wreck that crashed into Denver suburb on Saturday (20) – Photo: Broomfield Police Department via Post
The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that Boeing 777-200 returned to Denver International Airport after experiencing a failure of the correct engine shortly after takeoff. The agency said Flight 328 was flying from Denver to Honolulu.
United said in a statement that the aircraft had 231 passengers and 10 crew members. The airline did not release further details.
United Airlines plane wreck that crashed into Denver suburb on Saturday (20) – Photo: Broomfield Police Department via Post
The Broomfield Police Department posted photos on Twitter showing large circular pieces of debris against a suburban home about 25 miles north of Denver. Police is asking all the injured to report.
Tyler Thal, who lives in the area, told the Associated Press that he was walking with his family when he saw a large commercial plane flying awkwardly and picked up his phone to film it.
United Airlines plane wreck that crashed into Denver suburb on Saturday (20) – Photo: Broomfield Police Department via Post
“As I watched it, I saw an explosion and then a cloud of smoke and some debris falling out of it. It was like a speck in the sky and as I look up, I’m telling my family that I’ve Just saw what happened and then we heard the explosion, ”he said in a telephone interview. “The plane went like that, and we didn’t see after that.”
Thal was later relieved to learn that the aircraft had made a safe landing.
United Airlines plane wreck that crashed into Denver suburb on Saturday (20) – Photo: Broomfield Police Department via Post
A video posted on Twitter showed the engine completely engulfed in flames as the aircraft took off (see below).
Aviation safety experts said the aircraft suffered an uncontrolled and catastrophic engine failure. This type of phenomenon is extremely rare and occurs when the huge rotating disc inside the engine fails and breaks the armored housing around the engine, designed to prevent damage, John Cox, Aviation Safety Specialist and retired airplane pilots, who operate an aviation safety consulting firm, called the Safety Operating System.
United Airlines plane wreck that crashed in Denver suburb on Saturday (20) – Photo: AP Photo / David Jambubki
“This unbalanced disk has a lot of power and is moving at several thousand revolutions per minute … and when you have so much centrifugal force, it needs to go somewhere,” he said in a telephone interview.
Cox said that pilots practice to control this type of event often and immediately turn off anything flammable in the engine, including fuel and hydraulic fluid, using a button.
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