Passenger sees wing fly off plane

By Hollie Raposo 

On Monday, United Flight 757-200 from San Francisco to Boston made an emergency landing after the plane’s wing started falling apart, forcing the plane to land in Denver. This is not one of the first instances in a brief period of time that planes have had unexpected damage, turbulence or negligence.

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons

Passenger Kevin Clarke captured the series of events in a video. In the video, Clarke said, “Just about to land in Denver with the wing coming apart on the plane,” and added, “Can’t wait for this flight to be over.” The flight had 165 passengers aboard. Clarke noticed the wing starting to deteriorate once they took off from San Francisco.

A Reddit user on the plane posted a picture of the wing to Reddit. With user octopus_hug replying to the post “Sitting right on the wing and the noise after reaching altitude was much louder than normal. I opened the window to see the wing looking like this.”

Another passenger on the United flight alerted the flight attendants about the issue. Everyone was relieved to have landed safely in Denver. The passengers were put on the next flight out to Boston and arrived early Tuesday morning.

On Jan. 3, similar events occurred on Alaska Airlines flight 1282. A piece of the plane completely flew off in the middle of the flight towards Ontario, California. Multiple photos and videos were taken of the event. The passengers used an oxygen mask before safely landing in Portland, Oregon.

Planes having problems or turbulence occurring is becoming a common issue. It can probably be related to poor plane maintenance. But from two different companies, it has become apparent that there might be a greater issue at hand, having effects on the national airline safety issues that have been problematic in ensuring the safety of passengers aboard aircraft.