A Boeing plane operated by United Airlines lost a wheel mere seconds after takeoff in the second such incident within a few months.
Flight 1001 was departing Los Angeles International Airport around 7am on Monday when one of its main landing gear tires dropped, according to United Airlines.
The Boeing 757-200 continued the trip to its destination in Denver and landed safely about three hours later.
None of the 179 passengers or seven crew members aboard were hurt.
‘The wheel has been recovered in Los Angeles, and we are investigating what caused this event,’ United Airlines told ABC News.
Other aircraft reported a tire rolling across the LAX runway, according to RadarBox, which cited the X (formerly Twitter) account @thenewarea51.
Flight 1001 landed at 10.51am local time, which was a delay from its original 10.28am scheduled landing, according to RadarBox.
What caused the wheel to detach mid-flight was not immediately known.
The incident is under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration.
It follows a strikingly similar incident in March in which a tire fell from United Airlines Flight 35 as it took off from San Francisco International Airport. The plane was diverted to LAX and landed safely.
Tire debris from Flight 35 was found in an airport employee car park and had damaged several vehicles.
Video from Flight 35’s takeoff showed one of the wheels falling off the landing gear about five seconds after the wheels left the tarmac.
Monday’s Flight 1001 wheel detachment happened hours after Boeing in a court filing to the Department of Justice stated it would plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge linked to the 737 Max crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia.
The embattled commercial jetliner manufacturer has been under heavy scrutiny over continued plane malfunctions and its outgoing CEO was met with calls to resign while apologizing to victims’ families in a Senate hearing last month.
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