A United Boeing 777 was forced to return to Denver International Airport earlier today. The 26-year-old aircraft suffered an uncontained engine failure over the city, with parts of the engine cowling ending up in a local resident’s front yard.
It’s incredibly rare for an aircraft to suffer an uncontained engine failure. In August 2019, Simple Flying reported that a car window in Italy had been smashed by debris from a Norwegian 787’s uncontained failure. However, today has been a day of incredible co-incidence as not one but two major uncontained failures occurred over populated areas. Earlier today, parts of a Boeing 747 engine ended up lodged in the roof of a car in the Netherlands.
United Boeing 777 engine failure
Departing from Denver International Airport almost an hour late at 13:04 this afternoon, United Flight UA328 was due to fly to Honolulu. This flight was expected to last seven hours and 30 minutes. However, the flight ended up lasting just 30 minutes after the aircraft’s number two engine suffered an uncontained engine failure around five minutes into the flight at 13,400 feet.
Talking to the Denver departure controllers as recorded by LiveATC.net, the pilot of United 328 said,
“United 328 heavy, we’ve experienced an engine failure we need a turn. Mayday. Mayday. United 328 Heavy. Mayday. Mayday. Denver Departure United 328 Heavy, Mayday aircraft just expereinced an engine failure, we need to turn immediately.”
According to the airline, the Boeing 777 had 231 passengers onboard, accompanied by ten members of crew. N772UA is 26 years old, according to data from Planespotters.net. With line number five, it was actually one of the first Boeing 777 aircraft delivered to an airline, having flown with United Airlines since it was delivered on September 29th, 1995. According to data from RadarBox.com, the aircraft has been busy throughout the past year, completing 2184.5 hours over 530 flights in the past 12 months.
@michaelagiulia pic.twitter.com/K7FSJid0gj
— JACDEC (@JacdecNew) February 20, 2021
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Debris fell in front yards
The incident appears to have occurred over the district of Broomfield. The local police department shared a photo of the front of the engine cowling lying in somebody’s front yard,
Another photo of debris from a home off Elmwood in @broomfield. pic.twitter.com/VXEHEMpeDD
— Broomfield Police (@BroomfieldPD) February 20, 2021
They then went on to urge the public not to touch debris if found and to report it immediately. The police department said that the NTSB is dispatching a team that wishes to view all debris in situ. The department went on to share further photos of side cowling lying in a field,
Additional debris scattered across turf field at Commons Park. Please avoid the area if possible. pic.twitter.com/tmos5HBVwV
— Broomfield Police (@BroomfieldPD) February 20, 2021
On the incident, a United Airlines spokesperson told Simple Flying,
“Flight 328 from Denver to Honolulu experienced an engine failure shortly after departure, returned safely to Denver and was met by emergency crews as a precaution. There are no reported injuries onboard, and we will share more information as it becomes available.”
What do you make of the second uncontained engine failure over a populated area in the space of two days? Let us know what you think and why in the comments!