United Airlines 'temporarily' removes 24 Boeing 777 planes after Denver incident

After debris from a United Airlines plane fell onto Denver suburbs, the company announced that it is 'temporarily' removing all of its Boeing 777 planes currently in service that are powered by Pratt & Whitney 4000 series engines. While taking to Twitter, the airlines said it was immediately removing the planes “out of an abundance of caution”. The announcement came after the Federal Aviation Administration called for stepped-up inspections. It is worth noting that the 24 aircraft are part of the 52 777s in the United fleet and the other 28 remain in storage. 

In a series of tweets, the airlines also added, “Safety remains our highest priority, which is why our crews take part in extensive training to prepare and manage incidents like UA328. We remain proud of our employees' professionalism and steadfast dedication to safety every day”. 

READ: Seven Die In Nigerian Air Force Abuja Plane Crash; Probe Launched

‘Voluntary and temporary’ 

The move is “voluntary and temporary” and should disrupt only a “small number of customers”. It came after the FAA issued an emergency order saying it would be stepping up inspections of Boeing 777 airplanes equipped with certain Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines. According to CNN, the FAA Administrator Steve Dickson had said that officials reviewed all available safety data after the United Airlines flight was forced to return to Denver International Airport after it suffered an engine failure shortly after takeoff, causing debris to fall in greater Denver. 

READ: 'I Thought We Were Done': Parts Fall From Sky In Plane Scare

Flight 328 was flying from Denver to Honolulu when the incident occurred. United Airlines in a separate statement said that there were 231 passengers and 10 crew members on board when this incident occurred. All passengers were to be rebooked on a new flight to Hawaii, the airline said.

On Sunday, the National Transportation Safety Board also said that an examination of the PW4077 engine from United Airlines Flight showed that two fan blades were fractured and the remaining blades exhibited damage “to the tips and leading edges”. However, the officials also added that these are preliminary findings and should not be taken as conclusive of what went wrong. Experts believe that a fan blade in the engine of the Boeing 777 that experienced a catastrophic engine failure came off and took out another blade.  

READ: Residents Describe Seeing Plane's Engine On Fire Over Homes

READ: In Terrifying Incident, US Plane's Engine Burns Mid-air And Rains Debris From The Skies