A United Airlines flight departing from San Francisco and bound for Boston was diverted to Denver after passengers spotted that parts of the plane’s wing were chipped, Boston’s WHDH 7News first reported on Tuesday.
Kevin Clarke, a passenger on the flight, told WHDH that he caught sight of the damaged wing and began recording the incident. Clarke, a 67-year-old ski announcer from Maine, told the Associated Press that one of the pilots had walked along the plane’s aisle before announcing that the flight would be redirected to Denver.
Clarke’s video shows a plane wing with a dark blue tip descending onto a runway. The slat of the wing appeared to have broken off, leaving it looking jagged. In another part of the video, several people in orange vests labeled as “tech ops,” appeared to be repairing the wing.
“Can’t wait for this flight to be over,” Clarke can be heard saying in the video.
“I was just going to pray that we made it to the other side of the turbulence,” Clarke told AP.
A user on Reddit posted a photo of what appeared to be the damaged wing on Tuesday. The photo showed a plane wing, midair, with part of its slat chipped. The wing looked similar to the one shown in Clarke’s video.
“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. How panicked should I be? Do I need to tell a flight crew member?” the user wrote in the post, which garnered 1,500 upvotes and 485 comments at the time of writing.
The Federal Aviation Administration told the AP that it is investigating the incident. The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.
United issued a statement: “United flight 354 diverted to Denver yesterday afternoon to address an issue with the slat on the wing of the aircraft. The flight landed safely and we arranged for another aircraft to take our customers to Boston.”
The statement did not confirm what caused the damage to the wing. United did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.
Several United flights have been diverted in recent months. In November, a United flight bound for Vancouver was diverted to San Francisco after a passenger made a bomb threat on board. And in July, a United flight diverted to Chicago after a business-class passenger was upset that his choice meal was unavailable.
