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A flight of United Airlines had an engine failure just after takeoff from Denver International Airport on 20 February 2021, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. However, luckily it made an emergency landing back safely in Denver.
Some of the dramatic images showed large chunks of the plane fell onto several neighborhoods and scattered onto the ground.
As per the statement from the airlines, the Boeing 777-200 plane, with 231 passengers and 10 crew on board, and was heading towards Honolulu when it suffered the engine failure right after takeoff. However, the good news is there were no reports of injuries, either on the plane or the ground.
Some of the images posted by police in Broomfield, Colorado appeared to show plane debris on the ground, including an engine cowling scattered outside a home and what appeared to be other parts on a turf field. Police cordoned off the debris with police tape
Also there was this one video taken from what appeared to be inside the United plane showing an engine on fire.
Yet another video on social media showed a cloud of black smoke being left by the aircraft.
"Something blew up," a man on the video could be heard saying.
There is also an audio recording, in which United pilot could be heard making a mayday call to air traffic control.
"Mayday, aircraft just experienced engine failure, need to turn immediately," as per the audio from the monitoring website liveatc.net, which was also reviewed by Reuters.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will investigate the incident.
"If you find debris PLEASE don’t touch it or move it. The @NTSB wants all debris to remain in place for investigation," the Broomfield police department announced on Twitter.
The 26-year-old B777 aircraft was powered by two Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines. Investigators will try to decipher what caused the engine on the plane to fail and will also look at whether a fan blade failed.
Meanwhile Boeing declined to comment and referred all questions to United airlines.
On the other hand, union of pilots at United Airlines said in a joint statement: "We commend the crew of United Flight 328 for safely returning to Denver after experiencing a significant uncontained engine failure. We are thankful for the tremendous teamwork shown by the entire flight and cabin crew, and that there were no injuries on the ground or in the air."
"Extremely rare engine failures like this prove there is no substitute for experience and that the most important aircraft safety system is two well-trained, highly skilled, professional pilots at the controls on the flight deck. Throughout this pandemic, we have never reduced safety margins. At United airlines, no pilots were furloughed and we ensured that we kept our pilots qualified and proficient on our flight decks," it said.
In February 2018 also, an older Boeing 777 operated by United airlines and bounded for Honolulu suffered an engine failure when a cowling fell off about 30 minutes before the plane landed safely.