United faces more emergency landings as flights suffer hydraulic, maintenance issues
United is facing safety concerns after five major equipment incidents this week, three of which happened in the past two days.
A United Airbus flight out of Chicago O’Hare had to return to the Windy City Saturday due to a maintenance issue, the airline told The Post.
Customers will fly to Salt Lake City on another plane, the airline said.
The incident was just the latest in a string of mishaps for United.
United Flight 821 took off from San Francisco International Airport Friday afternoon headed to Mexico City, but was quickly diverted to Los Angeles “due to an issue with the aircraft’s hydraulic system,” an airline representative told The Post Saturday.
“The flight landed safely and passengers were deplaned normally at the gate,” the representative said.
The Airbus 320’s hydraulic system suffered an issue in one of its three hydraulic units, the airline told NBC Bay Area. The aircraft has multiple systems for redundancy.
The 105 passengers and five crew were evacuated and customers had to travel to their destination on a new aircraft.
The FAA is investigating.
Another United flight Friday saw one of its Boeing aircrafts drift off the runway in Houston after it rolled onto the grass when exiting the taxiway, the FAA said.
The 160 passengers were evacuated and no one was hurt.
Video showed the aircraft’s left wing touching the ground as the passengers were bused to the tarmac.
A Boeing plane flying from San Francisco to Japan Thursday had a tire fall off during takeoff and had to divert to Los Angeles as well.
The fallen landing gear damaged several cars at the airport. All 235 passengers landed safety at LAX, United confirmed.
And on Monday, another flight, also a Boeing aircraft, was forced to make an emergency landing after one of the engines exploded minutes into the trip.
Intense flames were visible from passenger windows on the left side and the plane had to land back in Houston.
An onslaught of incidents involving Boeing aircraft have happened recently, starting in January when an Alaska Airlines plane saw its door plug rip off mid-flight.
An FAA expert panel previously ripped Boeing’s “lack of awareness of safety-related metrics at all levels of the organization” in February.
However, Boeing told The Post Saturday it is “closely monitoring the situation and will provide any support needed to United Airlines and the investigators.”
The handful of incidents this week have made customers fearful, with one X user wondering if it’s “safe to book.”
“What’s going on with United Airlines?” they wrote on the social media platform.
“Well that gives me a warm fuzzy feeling knowing it’s the 4th emergency this week from United Airlines,” one joked, referring to the Mexico flight incident.
“Wow. What’s up with airline maintenance these days?” another asked.
United said in a statement it takes “every safety event seriously and will investigate each of the incidents that occurred this week to understand what happened and learn from them.”
“Much of this work is conducted together with the manufacturers, the FAA, and the NTSB as well as with the manufacturers of individual components. While this work is ongoing, each of these events is distinct and unrelated to one another. Safety is our top priority, and we’ll continue to do everything we can to keep our customers and employees safe.”
