A United Airlines flight landed safely at Denver International Airport on Saturday after experiencing engine failure causing debris to fall over northern Colorado.
There have been no injuries reported and the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration officials continued the investigation on Sunday.
According to the FAA, the NTSB “will be in charge of the investigation and will provide additional updates.”
The Boeing 777, headed for Hawaii from Denver, was carrying 10 crew members and 231 passengers.
Engine No. 2 appeared to catch fire, and debris fell from the aircraft — some landing in parks and residents’ yards.
A United pilot could be heard making an emergency call.
“Mayday, aircraft just experienced engine failure, need to turn immediately,” according to audio from the monitoring website liveatc.net which was reviewed by Reuters.
“When it initially happened, I thought we were done. I thought we were going down,” passenger David Delucia told the Associated Press.
After hearing an explosion and seeing a flash of light, Delucia said he quickly stuffed his wallet in his pocket, thinking it would help responders identify his body if he did not survive, he told the AP.
The F.A.A. said in a statement that the plane, a Boeing 777-200, experienced “a right-engine failure” shortly after takeoff and that it was aware of reports of debris “in the vicinity of the airplane’s flight path.”
Police in Broomfield, Colo., just north of Denver, responded to reports of metal debris falling from the plane around 1 p.m. local time.
“A lot of people said they heard a really loud explosion, which startled a lot of people, and then they just started seeing basically (what) they thought was a plane falling from the sky,” police spokesperson Rachel Welte told reporters.
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