Engine Reportedly Falls Off United Plane? Does Anyone Have More Detail? [Update: It’s a Broken Axle]

@MrTopher125 tweeted at me last night,

I haven’t been able to find any news stories about this, or any incidents at AvHerald. I can’t tell what’s going on in the photo.

I’ve reached out to United early this Saturday morning, but does anyone know which aircraft this is and what happened?

Update 8:10am Eastern: It’s not the engine:

Update 8:36am Eastern: United shares,

An aircraft at EWR was parked at the gate, with no customers or crew onboard, when its axle broke. As a precaution, emergency personnel were notified and the fire department responded immediately. There were no injuries. The aircraft has been removed from service for repair and we are working now to determine the cause.

An aircraft change was made and this flight departed at 8:09 p.m. We apologize to our customers for this inconvenience.

Update 9:44am Eastern: Here’s the emergency response.

And cranes!

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. At least they are following protocol: if something goes wrong, have cops threaten passengers.

  2. Appears that United is skimping on maintenance – an engine falling off should prompt for an investigation and review of all United’s craft. Board of Directors should consider new management.

  3. There were photos on twitter last evening of a UA A320 that had a landing gear failure on the right side while at the gate at EWR. This is likely the same aircraft. The photo showed the right side landing gear with the wheels broken.

  4. well if the photo’s are of the same aircraft, then the engine did not fall off the aircraft, rather the axle or supporting struts failed. I would say the cause falls into one of 4 or a combinations of a couple of the four reasons, either fatigue, improperly made components out improper material and could handle the weight, someone or in maintenance screwed up on this one or lastly sabotage.

    it will be interesting to see what they tell the cause was from this.

  5. United reverts back to standard procedure, Call the cops and threaten to Beat anyone who gets out of line.. United’s new motto is: “The Beatings will continue until moral improves”

  6. Perhaps you want update the title unless you want to be accused of click bait.

  7. @Mark updating the title is a good suggestion and I’ve done so, though i’m not worried about being accused of most things.

    and thank you for this comment actually being polite, a change we’re going to like going forward? 🙂

  8. “At least they are following protocol: if something goes wrong, have cops threaten passengers.”

    Oh the blessed PAPD, a treasure-trove of overpaid underworked rent-a-cops.

  9. I was the gate around 3-4:30 when it happened along with 5 or 6 other passengers. We saw the fire trucks approaching the gate, and security asked us to move at least 3 gates down, but you could clearly see that the engine was about 6″ off the ground. The aircraft was fixed around 1am on 5/6 and after the piolet ‘took it out for a test run’ we boarded for MCO – the flight was 4 hours late, but had no mechanical issues.

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