United Airlines aircraft makes emergency landing after losing tyre on takeoff

A United Airlines plane flying to Japan landed safely in Los Angeles on Thursday after a tire fell off during takeoff from San Francisco.

The video shows the plane’s left-side wheel falling off right after it took off. The tire fell into a parking lot at an airport. It hit a car, broke its back window, and then went through a fence into another parking lot.

No one got hurt at the airport, said Doug Yakel, a spokesman.

Fire trucks were ready at Los Angeles International Airport, but they didn’t need to be used because the Boeing 777 landed safely and stopped about two-thirds of the way down the runway. The airport spokesman, Dae Levine, said that the plane landed without any problems.

It was then pulled away.

United said the plane had 235 passengers and 14 crew members. The airline said that the plane, which was made in 2002, was made to land safely even if some of its tires were missing or damaged. United Airlines said that the passengers will be put on a different plane for the rest of their journey.

Boeing 777 airplanes have six tires on each of the two big landing gears. A video of Flight 35 leaving shows the airplane’s left-side tire falling off shortly after it took off.

Airplane experts said that it’s not common for planes to lose their tires and it doesn’t mean there is a big safety problem.

Alan Price, a pilot for Delta Air Lines, said in aviation we don’t want to have one thing that can cause problems if we can avoid it. This is an example of that.

“He said the tires left can carry the weight easily. ”

Price said that a loose tire is usually an issue with maintenance, not something that the manufacturer caused.

John Cox, a retired pilot and teacher of aviation safety at the University of Southern California, also agreed. “He said that Boeing won’t be affected because it was a United maintenance team that changed the tire. ”

The Federal Aviation Administration will check, said spokesman Tony Molinaro.