March 16 (UPI) — A post-flight inspection of a United Airlines Boeing 737-800 discovered a missing external panel on the underside of the aircraft after it landing at its destination in Oregon, airline officials say.
No equipment failure was indicted during the flight of United Airlines Flight 433 after it left San Francisco International Airport with 139 passengers and six crew members aboard on Friday,
However, pilots conducting a post-flight visual inspection upon landing in Medford, Ore., discovered that a panel connecting the underside of the fuselage to the rear wing was missing, the airline said in a statement issued to media outlets.
The flight landed at Medford’s Rogue Valley International Airport at about 11:30 a.m. when the pilots conducted their normal post-flight inspection.
Airline officials said nothing indicated any damage occurred during the flight, and no emergency was declared by its crew.
“This afternoon, United flight 433 landed safely at its scheduled destination at Rogue Valley International/Medford Airport. After the craft was parked at the gate, it was discovered to be missing an external panel,” United said in a statement Friday.
“We’ll conduct a thorough examination of the plane and perform all the needed repairs before it returns to service. We’ll also investigate to better understand how this damage occurred,” it added.
Rogue Valley International Airport officials briefly closed flight operations to allow maintenance crews to sweep the runways to ensure no debris would interfere with other flights. It was reopened after no debris or the missing panel was found.
A recent spate of mechanical issues with Boeing aircraft raised concerns regarding maintenance procedures after a door plug fell from a Boeing 737-9 MAX aircraft shortly after Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 departed Portland International Airport on Jan. 5.
Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board later found the blown-out plug in Cedar Hills, Ore.
More recently, a flight from Sydney to Santiago, Chile, made an emergency landing in New Zealand after the aircraft suddenly dropped about 300 feet, which injured about 50 passengers onboard the flight on Monday.
The Federal Aviation Administration has required Boeing to revise its inspections and maintenance procedures and produce a plan of action to prevent repeated occurrences.
Despite recently high-profile airline incidents, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg on Monday told reporters the U.S. airline industry is safer than ever.
