United Airlines Boeing flight lands in Denver after losing a wheel in Los Angeles

A United Airlines plane landed safely in Denver on Monday after a wheel fell off the plane during takeoff from Los Angeles earlier in the day.

Officials at Denver International Airport said United Flight 1001 — a Boeing 757-200 — landed at DIA just before 11 a.m. after a wheel on the rear landing gear fell off the plane upon takeoff at LAX. No injuries were reported among the 174 passengers or seven crewmembers.

United says an investigation is now ongoing to determine what caused the wheel to fall off. The wheel has since been recovered in Los Angeles.

Allen Stubblefield was traveling from southern California to Iowa with a connecting flight in Denver. He flies for work often and has never been part of an emergency landing. He said the takeoff felt completely normal but bout halfway through the flight, the pilot got on the PA to say they’d be doing an emergency landing into Denver.

“(I’ve) been through many safety procedures and you get to the point where you’re half-listening or barely listening,” he said.

Stubblefield said he heard no complaints or panicking from passengers.

When they were on their final descent, Stubblefield said the a flight attendant got on the PA and said “brace, brace, brace.”

“It was not the smoothest landing and I didn’t expect that,” Stubblefield said. “There was a bump, but that was it.”

After safely landing, he said he struck up a conversation with his seat neighbors to try to make the taxiing as normal as possible. “We were completely off-topic.”  

Archived air traffic control audio shows several other pilots pointing out to air traffic controllers that the wheel came off.

“A tire came off that B757 that took off,” one pilot radios. “We saw it rolling down past B7-B8.”

“Tower, United 1001, we were told a tire came off your aircraft,” the tower radios to the United pilot.

In March, a United Airlines Boeing 777 plane landed safely at LAX after losing a tire shortly after takeoff from San Francisco International Airport. That tire crushed a car on the ground and damaged several other vehicles.