A wheel ripped off a Boeing-crafted plane mid flight and was found in Los Angeles
United Airlines Holdings Inc. says another of its Boeing Co. aircraft lost a main landing gear wheel while taking off Monday, a near repeat of an incident in March that helped trigger a federal safety review of the carrier.
No one was injured on United Flight 1001, a United spokesman said in an email. The Boeing 757-200 that took off from Los Angeles about 7:16 a.m. local time and landed at Denver International Airport at 10:10 a.m.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it’s investigating the incident.
The wheel was found in Los Angeles, United said, without providing details. There have been no reported injuries among people on the ground or the 174 passengers and seven crew on the plane, it said. There are four wheels on each of the plane’s two main landing gears.
United shares fell 0.4% Monday. They have gained 13.5% year to date.
The incident is eerily similar to a United flight in March that lost a wheel shortly after taking off from San Francisco on a flight to Osaka, Japan. The Boeing 777-200, with 249 people on board, diverted to Los Angeles International Airport where it landed safely. No one was injured, but videos on X.com, formerly Twitter, by RadarBox captured the moment the wheel fell. It damaged vehicles in a parking lot.
The FAA began a broad safety review of the airline after a series of headline-grabbing incidents over several weeks, including the earlier lost wheel, an aircraft running off a Houston runway and a fuselage piece also coming loose in flight.
Last month, a United plane returned to a Connecticut airport after losing part of a liner from inside an engine cover. And on Sunday, a United plane bound for Guam returned to Nagoya’s international airport in Japan after detecting a system malfunction, Kyodo News reported. There were no injuries among the 44 passengers and six crew members.
United said it’s also investigating the latest incident.
