Debris from a United Airlines plane fell onto areas around Denver during an emergency landing, with one large piece that appears to be part of the engine narrowly missing a home.
The plane landed safely and nobody onboard or on the ground was reported hurt, authorities said.
One video taken from what appeared to be inside the United plane showed an engine on fire. “Something blew up,” a man on the video can be heard saying.
In an audio recording, a United pilot could be heard making a mayday call to air traffic control.
“Mayday, aircraft just experienced engine failure, need to turn immediately,” according to audio from the monitoring website liveatc.net which was reviewed by Reuters.
The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the Boeing 777-200 returned to the Denver International Airport after experiencing a right-engine failure shortly after take-off.
Flight 328 was travelling from Denver to Honolulu when the incident occurred, the agency said.
United said in a separate statement that there were 231 passengers and 10 crew onboard. The airline released no further details.
The Broomfield Police Department posted photos on Twitter showing large, circular pieces of debris leaning against a house in the suburb about 25 miles north of Denver.
Tyler Thal, who lives in the area, told The Associated Press that he was out for a walk with his family when he noticed a large commercial plane flying unusually low and took out his phone to film it.
“While I was looking at it, I saw an explosion and then the cloud of smoke and some debris falling from it. It was just like a speck in the sky and as I’m watching that, I’m telling my family what I just saw and then we heard the explosion,” he said in a phone interview.
“The plane just kind of continued on and we didn’t see it after that.”
Thal was relieved to learn later that the plane had made a safe landing.
Video posted on Twitter by a woman who said she was the daughter of people onboard the flight showed the engine fully engulfed in flames as the plane flew through the air.