Passengers in fear

Part of landing flap breaks off – emergency landing

(Bild: kameraOne (Screenshot))

165 passengers on a US airline United Airlines plane recently experienced a few anxious minutes. A passenger on board the Boeing 757-200 recorded a video showing that parts of the jet's right wing had come loose.

"We're about to land in Denver because the wing of the plane is coming apart," passenger Kevin Clarke can be heard saying in the video. "It broke apart when we took off from San Francisco and we just touched down again. I can't wait for this flight to be over."

Jet makes emergency landing in Denver
Clarke was one of the passengers on board the Boeing, which was en route from San Francisco to Boston on Monday, when part of the right wing literally crumbled. He then captured on video when the plane had to make an emergency landing in Denver, Colorado, almost 2,000 miles (around 3,200 kilometers) from its planned destination.

The damaged leading edge of the right wing of the Boeing 757-200

(Bild: kameraOne (Screenshot))

"We took off, I heard this loud buzzing noise and then it disappeared, so I didn't think much of it," says Clarke. But suddenly the pilot came to the back of the plane. He looked out of a cabin window and realized that the "entire leading edge of the wing was destroyed", he told US media.

US aviation authority investigating the incident
The plane landed in Denver to fix "a problem with a slat", according to United Airlines. The cause of the damage is still unclear. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that it was investigating the incident.

Boeing is under a lot of pressure following an incident in January. Back then, an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 lost a cabin section while flying over the US state of Oregon. The more than 170 people on board escaped with a scare.