A United Airlines flight had to make an emergency landing Friday after a failure in the plane’s hydraulic system, making it the fourth incident for the airline this week.
The airline said the flight headed to Mexico City from San Francisco had to make an emergency landing in Los Angeles because of the failure.
The 105 passengers and five crew members on board landed safely and disembarked at the gate, making it necessary to schedule a new flight.
The incident caps a week of trouble for the airline: A plane skidded off the runway on Friday, a wheel came off a flight on Thursday and a plane engine caught fire on Monday.
The United Airlines flight that lost its wheel had also left San Francisco and was headed to Osaka in Japan when the Boeing 777-200’s wheel came off.
The airline said the flight, seen here, was headed to Mexico City from San Francisco and had to make an emergency landing in Los Angeles because of the failure.
A Boeing 737 Max operated by United Airlines skidded off the runway onto the grass as it exited the runway at George Bush Airport in Houston early Friday.
Several vehicles in the employee parking lot were severely damaged by a falling wheel that also destroyed a fence.
The plane landed safely at LAX around 1:20 p.m. without further incident and no injuries were reported on the ground.
‘The 777-200 has six tires on each of the two main landing gear struts. “The aircraft is designed to land safely with missing or damaged tires,” United said.
After the incident, a new plane had to be mobilized to take passengers from Los Angeles to Japan.
On Friday, another flight skidded off the runway after landing in Houston, after experiencing some type of train collapse while exiting the runway at George Bush Airport.
Shocking images showed the plane on its wings on the grass at the side of the runway, with passengers being rushed from an emergency staircase at the door.
Despite the rocky end to the flight, one passenger said the landing was smooth, but he felt some bumps as the plane began to taxi.
“It felt like a flat tire on a car,” the passenger told Click2Houston.
United Airlines Flight 35 left San Francisco airport for Osaka in Japan and was barely leaving the runway when the Boeing 777-200’s wheel came off.
Cars knocked down by a falling wheel are now nothing more than twisted metal
In a statement, Houston airports said: ‘Around 8am (Friday), a United Airlines flight landed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH).
‘Upon exiting the runway, the aircraft left the sidewalk and entered the grass on runway 9-27.
‘Fortunately no one on board was injured. The Houston Fire Department and Houston Airport Operations responded immediately and safely evacuated all passengers.
On Monday, another United flight ran into trouble when its engine caught fire after taking off from Houston bound for Fort Myers, Florida.
United said Thursday it believes bubble wrap was sucked into the engine, causing the problems.
Images taken from the passenger window show white-hot flashes coming from the plane’s engine.
“Hello ladies and gentlemen, we noticed something happened outside,” a crew member can be heard warning passengers before the clip cuts out.
One of the engines on another United Airlines 737 in Texas burst into flames mid-flight in a terrifying fireball earlier this week.
Moments later, they were forced to make an emergency landing and return to Houston’s George H. Bush Intercontinental Airport moments after takeoff. No injuries were reported in the incident.
Passenger Dorian D. Cerda told Storyful that the plane was “approximately 15 minutes” into the two-hour trip when the incident occurred, and the plane landed just before 7 p.m.
“The flight landed safely and passengers disembarked normally,” United Airlines said, adding that they “arranged a new aircraft to take our customers to their destination.”
The plane model in the Houston incident was a Boeing 737-900, a plane similar to the Max fleet that was grounded in January after an exit door exploded during an Alaska Airlines flight over Oregon.
Bolts appear to be missing from the door plug that exploded on a Boeing 737 MAX during an Alaska Airlines flight on January 5.
The door stopper was recovered from the backyard of a home after it exploded on January 5.
On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration said its six-week audit of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems found “multiple instances in which the companies allegedly failed to meet manufacturing quality control requirements.”
‘The FAA identified non-compliance issues in Boeing’s manufacturing process control, parts handling and storage, and product control. “The FAA is providing these details to the public as an update to the agency’s ongoing investigation,” the statement said.
The administration announced it would continue to ground Boeing’s 171 planes and had halted production expansion of the Boeing 737 MAX.
The news was a blow to the aircraft manufacturer, whose market value plummeted by $30 billion after the disaster.
Boeing’s stock price also plummeted 20 percent in the month following the explosion.