A wheel fell off a United Airlines 777-200 jet during takeoff from San Francisco, unfortunately landing on “several” parked cars and causing a fair amount of damage. Meanwhile, the flight diverted to Los Angeles out of an abundance of caution.
Wheel Falls Of United Airlines 777-200 Bound For Osaka During San Francisco Takeoff
UA035 took off from San Francisco (SFO) on Thursday, March 7, 2024, bound for Osaka, Japan (KIX). The flight was operated by a 22-year-old Boeing 777-200 jet, registration number N226UA.
During takeoff, a tire fell off the landing gear…and it was captured on video!
Listening to Air Traffic Control audio, it seems the pilots were not even aware of this until it was conveyed to them…is there no indicator of low tire pressure (or, in this case, zero tire pressure) in the flight deck?
Each of the two landing gears has six wheels and is designed to fully operate even if one of the tires is missing. The aircraft or passengers were never likely in any danger.
But with 249 people on board (235 passengers, 10 flight attendants, and four pilots), the flight diverted to Los Angeles out of an abundance of caution. It isn’t clear why the 777 flew down to Los Angeles instead of returning to San Francisco, but my guess is that it was to offload some of the fuel onboard that would have taken the aircraft across the Pacific Ocean to Japan.
The plane landed without incident in Los Angeles, a “rescue” aircraft was sent from San Francisco, and passengers departed at 7:55 pm for Osaka and will land at 1:16 am local time on Saturday, March 9th.
Meanwhile, San Francisco Airport officials confirmed that the missing wheel had fell to the ground in an employee parking lot, smashing “several” cars:
“United Flight 35 departing to Osaka lost a portion of landing gear tire during takeoff. The tire debris landed in an on-airport employee parking lot, causing damage to several vehicles.”
Most media outlets have used the word tire (or tyre in the UK) to describe the incident, but it appears both the tire and the rim fell off, meaning it was actually the entire wheel.
That will be quite an insurance claim for the car owners…
CONCLUSION
A United 777 lost a wheel during takeoff from San Francisco and diverted to Los Angeles as a cautionary move. Unfortunately, that wheel fell onto several parked cars at SFO, causing significant damage. Thankfully, no one was hurt.
Are you an airline mechanic? How does a wheel simply fall off an airplane? Were there bolts missing or did the axle (which, per my understanding, has a single, large specialized nut) fail?
Hat Tip: Eye Of The Flyer // image: reddit
United will:
– state it takes “Safety Seriously”
– claim the video is prejudicial
– say any damaged EVs were fully depreciated and have no residual value (you can blame Hertz for that one)
– only offer coupons for one free drink on your next UA flight as compensation.
@ExitRowSeat … +1 . And UA will state that “diversity or cross-dressing has nothing to do with it” .
Big Kirby Energy.
Am I the only one who finds this hilarious?
Would have been funnier if Paul Pelosi was getting suc#ed off by a homeless guy again in one of the cars hit.
Your self hatred and projection is not only pathetic, but hilarious. WTF? Why would that even enter your mind? Just more evidence of how sick and twisted conservatives are today.
Hey, when he’s right he’s right!
You have to start asking the question if United’s commitment to ” a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace and world” also applies to its maintenance department? For some reason, almost all the non-737 max issues are on United planes. Wing damage, rapid depressurization after takeoff, tire falling off…all United!
Not to defend UA here, but I would imagine the maintenance crew at UA’s base in SFO is probably already naturally diverse (not forced), even way before the DEI/ESG stuff started to take center stage in the last 5 -10 yrs. Could be wrong, though.
The wheel departs the A/C at 11:24:25 on the video.
Without 28L, SFO had perfect weather but a landing capacity of 30/h. There was already an all-day GDP, and then this wheel drop caused a 25-min hiatus of take-offs and landings. If this plane came back to SFO, it would shut off arrivals even more (with emergency vehicles all around and a mandatory stop on the runway to monitor tire temperatures.
Oh dear, if only Untied had replaced their ancient 772s with those nice new A359s they ordered and kept delaying delivery of.
UA will use Boeing 787-10 HGW to replace similar sized 777-200ER. Airbus A350 is a better candidate to replace B777-700ER.
I cannot believe this has turned into a DEI controversy…then again, maybe it should not surprise me.
Shouldn’t surprise you at this point, Matthew. Any post you make is going to be scoured for some juvenile fool to take the opportunity to make an idiotic political statement about DEI, “invasions” across the border by migrants (apparently personally carried by Biden), some homophobic rants about Buttigieg, or a flame war of union bashing vs apologists. You could really automate the comments section with AI to just fill up with one (or all) of those topics. Would save lots of time.
If the post can’t attract that attention and is just about travel, then it’s either T. Dunn or DCS going on about something nonsensical. Can’t believe I am saying this, but I find myself preferring their rants to this nonsense.
I wish your comment wasn’t so true.
Rough week for UA. Where’s Kirby?
The United employees in San Fran are the most diverse in America. The prosecution rests its case. Verdict is unanimous.
Yup. Unanimous verdict.
You’re an ignorant racist troll
I think the choice was LAX because SFO already had capacity limitations, they could burn some fuel and reduce weight, and it had facilitates available to reschedule or rescue the passengers.