BOSTON – Passengers on a Boston-bound flight were glad to be on the ground Tuesday morning after their plane’s wing began to “fall apart” in the air.
The United flight from San Francisco to Boston had to make an emergency landing in Denver, where passengers boarded a new plane.
Kevin Clarke landed at Logan Airport three hours later than planned. He told Boston 25 News he was just happy to be home safely after some nerve-wracking moments in the air.
Clarke captured the video of the United Boeing 757 plane showing the moment it landed in Denver.
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“Just before landing in Denver, when the wing of the plane falls apart,” Clarke said, recounting his cellphone video of the plane hitting the runway.
An aircraft maintenance team then rushed to the wing to assess the damage.
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United Flight 354 was carrying 165 passengers and was scheduled to fly to Boston, but had to be diverted after part of the wing fell apart. Clarke told Boston 25 News that he found it interesting when he walked along the San Francisco gate and saw bird strike shapes.
“‘I’m like a bird strike?’ That’s not good,” Clarke said. “We took off, I heard this loud buzzing noise and then it went silent so I didn’t think much about it and all of a sudden the pilot came back so I opened my window and peeked out the window and the entire leading edge of the wing was destroyed.â €
Boston 25 News reached out to United to tell us that United Flight 354 was diverted to fix an issue with the slat on the plane’s wing.
“There was a little panic at first, but the pilot had come back, looked at it, taken a few photos of it, talked to the guys on the ground and said, yeah, on to Denver, it shouldn’t be a problem,” he told Clarke .
Once in Denver, the passengers boarded a new plane. Everyone arrived safely in Boston three hours later than planned. Clarke told Boston 25 News that he felt United handled the situation well.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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