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A tire fell off a United Airlines plane taking off from San Francisco International Airport Thursday morning and landed in a nearby parking lot, damaging several vehicles, authorities said.
The tire from Japan-bound United Flight 35, which was diverted to Los Angeles, ended up landing in an airport employee parking lot, SFO spokesman Doug Yakel said. No injuries were reported.
Video footage captured the moment the Boeing 777-200’s tire detached from the rear landing gear seconds after the plane took off.
Watch a tire fall off a United Airlines plane taking off from San Francisco International Airport.
The runway was briefly closed to allow crews to remove debris, Yakel said. There was no further impact on airport operations.
Flight 35 was headed to Osaka, Japan, before being diverted to Los Angeles International Airport, where it landed safely.
According to the airline, a Boeing 777 has six tires on each of the two main landing gear struts. It is designed to land with missing or damaged tires.
A United plane made an emergency landing after losing one of its tires during takeoff at San Francisco International Airport. Retired pilot Doug Rice joins Janelle Wang to discuss the incident.
Two aviation experts with decades of experience as airline pilots couldn’t emphasize enough how rare it is for a tire to come off an airplane.
“It’s amazing that this happened,” said aviation expert Mike McCarron. “Fortunately no one was hurt.”
When asked if he thinks it was a Boeing or United problem, McCarron said: “It’s like if you bought a Chevy two or three years ago and the wheel came off. Well, who maintains your car in that moment? where I really think they will focus on United’s maintenance procedures and look at their documentation and see where things happened. Now, if they point out a structural problem, then they will involve Boeing when it comes to the construction of the aircraft.”
Doug Rice, who flew for commercial airlines for 42 years, said that while the plane has six tires on each side and is capable of landing without one of those wheels, there is still concern that something else could be damaged until the plane land safely.
“That’s why they didn’t take the plane off the runway,” he said. “They stopped it. They left the plane there. The firefighters went out, the airport operations went out. That’s why they also towed the plane to the gate, because they didn’t want to risk having problems with the plane.”
Aviation expert Mike McCarron joins NBC Bay Area’s Janelle Wang to talk about a United plane that made an emergency landing after losing one of its tires during takeoff at San Francisco International Airport.
According to the airline, a total of 249 people were traveling on the plane: 235 customers, 10 flight attendants and 4 pilots.
Records show the plane was delivered by Boeing to United 22 years ago.
FAA and NTSB investigators will inspect the plane and wheel to try to figure out how it fell.
United said customers boarded a new plane at LAX to continue their journey to Osaka.
“We are grateful to our pilots and flight attendants for their professionalism in handling this situation. We are also grateful to our teams on the ground who were waiting with a tug to move the aircraft shortly after landing and to our teams at the airport who assisted to customers upon arrival,” United said in a statement. “We will work with customers and the owners of damaged vehicles in SFO to ensure their needs are addressed.”