Houston, we have a problem: Two United Airlines flights forced to turn back and make emergency landings in Texas after plowing into flock of birds as crew describe hearing a ‘loud pop’
- The planes, destined for Las Vegas and Chile, returned at around 10pm Tuesday
- Footage appears to show firefighters attending one of the planes at the airport
- FAA said bird strikes are growing concern, after similar incident in Ohio days ago
Two United Airlines flights were forced to take emergency landings in Houston after flying into a flock of birds.
The planes, one destined for Las Vegas and the other to Santiago, Chile, were forced to return to Bush Intercontinental Airport at around 10pm Tuesday.
A ‘loud pop’ can be heard on air traffic audio from the Chile flight at the moment of the bird strike.
‘When we leveled off at 4,000 feet, we heard a loud pop and you could feel something,’ one of the pilots said. ‘All three pilots that felt subsequent strike are unsure if it was a bird, uh, we didn’t see it.’
He added: ‘It could be a bird… It could be a drone… We don’t know but all we know is we hit something.’
Emergency vehicles tend to United Flight 2086 that had to return to Houston International Airport April 25, 2023 after a bird strike
Video shows firefighters responding to one of the flights at IAH around 10pm
Two planes had to turn around and land at Bush Intercontinental Airport shortly after taking off on Tuesday due to bird strikes, according to Houston Airport System officials
It comes days after an American Airlines flight was forced to return to Ohio after striking a flock of geese
The Las Vegas flight had been in the air for around half an hour before retreating for its emergency landing, its data shows.
Footage appears to show firefighters attending one of the planes at the airport upon its return.
No injuries have been reported, with both planes inspected and cleared for take off by Wednesday.
The Federal Aviation Authority said bird strikes are a growing concern, due in part to increasing populations of large birds and their inability to hear quieter engines.
It comes just days after an American Airlines Boeing 737’s engine burst into flames after striking a flock of geese just 40 minutes after it took off.
The American Airlines flight 1958 to Phoenix, Arizona, took off from John Glenn Columbus International Airport at 7:43am, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks flights nationally, but landed back at the airport at 8:22am.
A passenger told NBC News that she could hear ‘people on the plane crying’ after the engine went up in flames.
