A United Airlines plane landed safely in Denver on Monday after its wheels came off. Taking off from Los Angeles earlier in the day.
Officials at Denver International Airport said United Airlines Flight 1001 Boeing The 757-200 landed at DIA just before 11 a.m. after its rear landing gear wheels came off the plane during takeoff at Los Angeles International Airport. None of the 174 passengers and seven crew members were injured.
United Airlines said it was investigating the incident to determine what caused the wheel to come off, which was later recovered in Los Angeles.
Allen Stubblefield was on a flight from Southern California to Iowa with a layover in Denver. He flies frequently for work but has never experienced an emergency landing. The takeoff felt completely normal, he said, until about halfway through the flight, the pilot announced the plane would be making an emergency landing in Denver.
“(I’ve) been through a lot of safety procedures and it comes down to you only half listening or barely listening,” he said.
Stubblefield said he had not heard any complaints or sounds of panic from passengers.
During the final descent, a flight attendant said over the PA system, “Hold on, hold on, hold on,” Stubblefield said.
“It wasn’t a smooth landing, I wasn’t expecting that,” Stubblefield said. “There was a jolt, but that was it.”
After landing safely, he said, in an effort to make the taxiing process as normal as possible, he began a conversation with the passenger sitting next to him: “We were completely off topic.”
Audio from the air traffic control recording can be heard by several other pilots telling air traffic controllers that the wheels had come off.
“A tire came off a B757 as it took off,” one of the pilots radioed. “I saw it roll past B7-B8.”
“Tower, United 1001, we’ve received a report that your tire has come off,” the tower radioed to the United pilot.
In March, a United Airlines Boeing 777 landed safely at Los Angeles International Airport. The tire came off Shortly after taking off from San Francisco International Airport, its tires crushed a car that was lying on the ground and damaged several other vehicles.
